


This Little Piggy Had None

by hannibalsbattlebot



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Agatha Christie AU, I'm serious about the character death tag this is an "And Then There Were None" parody, Implied/Referenced Incest, Non-Graphic Violence, Other, Period Typical Attitudes, mild period-typical racism and sexism, plot heavy, seriously tho i toned this down A LOT from the original, some gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-06 08:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12813447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hannibalsbattlebot/pseuds/hannibalsbattlebot
Summary: A Hannibal-themed "And Then There Were None" AU. (This idea came from a comment at FannibalFest 2017. So thank you if that was your idea!)Ten strangers are invited to a party on isolated Stag's Head Island. They think they are there to meet their mysterious hosts. What they don't know is their past sins are going to find them out, and they start paying the ultimate penalty, one by one...





	1. Chapter 1

The boat taking them to Stag’s Head Island was small: barely large enough for the eight passengers and the taciturn captain. 

“Narracott,”  he said. Will Graham assumed this was the man’s name and likewise introduced himself. He wanted to ask Narracott what he knew of the island, but that would only expose his own ignorance, so he took his seat silently.

 

Jack Crawford looked around the boat, wondering what these people had to hide. It was much too early to start drafting dossiers for Mr. Neeme, but it was never too early to keep his guard up. He suspected two people already of being up to no good: the lone woman in the group and one of the unremarkable men--the young one with the close-clipped beard. She looked far too comfortable for the situation, while he looked too uncomfortable. Jack tried to keep his glances short, but he couldn’t glean much. It was cold. Everyone held their coats tightly around themselves and no one was speaking to the other. That would have to wait until they were inside, where it was warm, and, perhaps, if alcohol was made available...

 

Will Graham couldn't help thinking about the other passengers.  Taking a quick assessment of them was good practice. It kept his mind occupied, and it gave him a jump start on his secret mission. He was interested to see how good his predictions were once he got better acquainted with the guests.  _ Other guests _ , he reminded himself.  _ As far as they were concerned, I am one of them _ . 

The party was lopsided: only one woman, although she did grab one’s attention. She was a redhead who could not seem to keep her curls restrained under her hat. She had a knowing, worldly smile.  _ Fiery, that one, _ Graham thought. That didn’t have to be bad, but it could be.

There were six men in the boat, excluding himself. He judged them to be evenly split in age: two younger, two Will’s approximate age and two older. From the way they spoke Will believed they were all Americans, save one of the older men: a tall, severe-looking man in a fine camel-hair coat. He alone seemed to be enjoying the passage across the bay.  _ He has money, but it is subtle money.  Tasteful money. _

The other older man was a solidly-built man wearing a fedora. The man in the fedora was looking at him. There was a stiffness in his posture that spoke of...military?  _ No. Not current military. Former military, now working in law enforcement.  _ Graham didn’t like the way the man looked at him, but at least he wasn’t staring outright.

Apart from age, the two younger men couldn’t be more dissimilar. One was blond, blue-eyed, vociferous (he kept trying to speak, but the wind snatched his words away) and wealthy. His hair was the uniform light platinum that is rarely seen in adults and it stuck up off the top of his head like duck fluff; unruly even before they got out in the bay. His coat was light blue with a thick fur collar. His mode of dress was ostentatious to the point of vulgarity, an interesting contrast to the wealthy foreigner. Although it was less flashy, Graham was sure the foreign gentleman’s coat cost more than blond man’s fur-trimmed coat.

The other young man was dark and quiet. Dark in his deep brown hair, dark in his charcoal overcoat and black trousers. In contrast, his bright blue eyes stood out in his pale face. He had a slight smile as if lost in his own world. He might be a simpleton but Graham doubted it. Those eyes were too sharp to miss much.  _ He’s someone to watch. _

The two middle-aged men sitting across from Will were unremarkable. They were bundled in their coats against the wind. One had a Vandyke beard that elevated his coarse--but not unintelligent--features. The other had a close-cropped beard, possibly hiding an unfortunate jaw line. Neither of them worked with their hands. The placement of their hands (the Vandyke resting his in his lap, the bearded one draping his hands over knee) showed they thought of them as instruments, not tools.

The man with the beard had nice shoes--too nice for a boat trip and a possible scramble up a rocky path at Stag’s Head. Graham looked at the sole woman’s high heels. They were black patent leather with a thin heel, but he thought she would probably manage the ascent better than the man wearing the slick-soled dress shoes.

 

Freddie Lounds felt the eyes of the men on her and she recrossed her stocking-clad legs. There was something to be said for being the only woman among men. 

She was so excited to get the opportunity to cover this party. At this moment, anyone who followed the celebrity scene was talking about Stag’s Head Island. It had been bought lock-stock-and-barrel by an unknown buyer. The secrecy around the purchase got tongues wagging up and down the eastern seaboard. Some thought it was bought by a well-known public figure or an eccentric millionaire. (They had to have enough scratch at the ready to buy a whole island!) The rumors were plentiful and fanciful, but most of Freddie’s readers assumed a big celebrity who didn’t want to be in the public eye bought it for privacy. Freddie had to admit that Stag’s Head Island--with its single house and boat-only accessibility--would be a great place to hide out. That’s why she was tickled to get the invitation to cover this party, which would be a grand opening of sorts. She would break the news of who bought the island and why. This was a chance to make a big break from being a gossip columnist. If the story of Stag’s Head Island was interesting enough, her editor promised it would be a standalone story. And Freddie was determined to make it an interesting story.

 

Will Graham was right about Hannibal Lecter. He was rich, foreign and enjoying himself immensely. He hated, above all else, to be bored. Some of the other guests promised to be very interesting.

Dr. Lecter could see as they neared the dock, a man waiting for them. As they drew even closer, Dr. Lecter could see he had a facial deformity of some kind. _Cleft lip_ , he diagnosed quickly. He wondered if he had cleft palate as well. He might be able to tell when he heard him talk. Dr. Lecter was first off the boat and stuck his hand out to the man, who looked at it a long moment before he took it.

“Mr. Neeme?” Dr. Lecter asked.

“No,” he said, clearly enough. “I’m Francis, the caretaker.”

Dr. Lecter gave his hand another short pump. “Good to meet you, Francis.” No one else stepped forward to make a formal introduction to the caretaker.

“Don’t worry about your bags,” Francis said. The captain of the boat was carelessly dumping the baggage out on the dock. “I’ll come back for them.”

 

Crawford looked up at the hill. He couldn’t see the house from where he stood, but he could see the two large, gnarled and bowed trees that grew on the very crest and gave the island its name. From the shore, the steep profile of the cliff and the two trees jutting out on the very top, did give the island the appearance of a stag's head, antlers and all.

 

Francis led them to the front door and rang the bell. A woman answered it. She was dressed entirely in black. She was slight and wore her ice-blonde hair in a chignon. 

“Hello,” she said, her voice surprisingly husky. “Do come in.”

“Are you Mrs. Neeme?” Freddie asked, pushing forward.

“I am not,” she said said. “My name is Bedelia and I’m the housekeeper.” She turned to lead them inside.

The bearded man with the dress shoes fell in step next to Bedelia. “How many servants do the Neemes have?”

“Only Francis and myself,” she said. “I don’t know if other servants will arrive later. I hadn’t been expecting Francis when he arrived yesterday.”

“Mrs. Neeme didn’t tell you?”

“The only communication I’ve had with the Neemes have been through letters. I am expecting they will have plenty to tell me when they arrive.”

“Are they not here?” asked the young clean-shaven man.

“They will be delayed and may not join us for dinner. However, I have instructions from them on how the evening’s entertainment will proceed. I will show you to your rooms where you may freshen up. We dress for dinner. Dinner is promptly at 8pm with drinks to follow.”

 

Crawford adjusted his tie and headed downstairs for the cocktail hour. He was looking forward to this. A bunch of cultured people at a dinner part. How dangerous could that get? 

_ This Neeme might be paranoid, but I'm more than happy to take his money. _

_ The set up was odd, deuced odd, but the down payment I received from the Neemes, with promises of more to come, that was solid enough. I just can't afford to turn my nose up at this right now. I’ve lost the trust of my men. My superiors cleared me, but the men looked at me differently now. They don’t trust me not to send them blindly into danger. The damned thing is I can’t say they don’t have reason to doubt. _

In the hallway, Crawford encountered the one of the bearded men. He now had a silver-handled cane in his hand.

“Heading down to cocktail hour?” the man asked.

“I am.” He held out his hand. “Samuel Ellington.”

“Dr. Frederick Chilton,” said the man. “So how do you know our hosts?”

“I don’t,” Crawford said. “Not really. They are friends of friends. You?”

Chilton leaned closer to Crawford. “I don’t know if this is telling tales out of school, but Mr. Neeme sent me a letter asking me to take a look at his wife without alarming her. She’s nervy--that’s what I specialize in. Nerves” Dr. Chilton squeezed the handle of his cane. “I hope she really is an interesting case. More often than not, these ‘nervy’ wives are just bored.”

“Moving to an island won’t remedy boredom,” Jack said. 

“If she’s truly nervy, the peace will do her good,” Dr. Chilton. “Whether they chose to live on the island or sell it may hinge on my report.”

Together they went down to dinner.

 

The dinner was lovely. The group ate and were content and got to know each other. Dr. Chilton, who ran an asylum, found common ground with one of the younger man. Matthew Brown admitted to “a passing familiarity” with the inner workings of an asylum. Graham took note of his phrasing. Abel Gideon also had a thoughtful look on his face while listening to the conversation between Brown and Dr. Chilton.

The redhead, whose name was Freddie Lounds, was what Will’s father would have called ‘spirited.’ She was a lady reporter and proudly regaled them with stories of times she had a close shave getting a story. 

At the other end of the table, the blonde young man, Mason Verger, was holding up more than his share of the conversation. Through the dinner, the rest of the party found out he was heir to a pork processing fortune, he had a pet eel, liked riding horses around his estate and was a philanthropist with a particular interest in orphans.

Dr. Lecter was seated next to Mr. Verger. He looked down at his plate more than he looked at the chatty man next to him. He seemed to barely hear Verger.

Graham was seated next to the man in the fedora. He noticed the man, Samuel Ellington, did not volunteer much of his own life.

 

“Interesting centerpiece, isn’t it?” Crawford asked Graham.

Will reached out and touched one of the ceramic pigs that circled the outer rim of the centerpiece. The pigs were all dressed in human finery, standing on their back hooves like they were ready for a stroll--or maybe for a trip to market. Judging by their clothes, they appeared to be mostly male, but one of the sows held a parasol. In the center of the circle were mounded flowers.

“It’s Stag’s Head Island,” mused Graham. “You would think they decor would be deer. But here are pigs. And above my mantle there’s a cross stitch with that nursery rhyme ‘This little piggy went to market.” 

”I’ve got the same thing over my mantle,” Gideon said.

“We even had roast beef for dinner,” Brown said.

“How fun,” Verger said. “I have a soft spot for swine.”

Graham took his hand off the sow figurine. The top of her parasol came to a surprisingly sharp point.

 

At Bedelia's recommendation, after dinner they retired to the drawing room for drinks. They were sated and slightly sleepy, but none of them were ready to call it a night. Dr. Lecter offered around cigarettes from a silver case, but didn’t light one for himself. Crawford took one with thanks. Verger took one only after scrutinizing them for quality, going so far as to pluck one up and sniff it. Gideon tsked when Ms. Lounds took one and lit it with a lighter she brought with her in her evening bag. After giving out the cigarettes, Dr. Lecter went to the window to stare out into the blackness.

Bedelia came in and started circulating with a tray of champagne. Verger had helped himself to the sideboard bar.

“Do you have any olives in this place?” Verger asked the housekeeper. “Can't very well have a martini without an olive.” 

“I’ll check the pantry,” Bedelia said, and left the room.

“Can you believe this?” Verger said, turning to Dr. Lecter. If he was appealing to Lecter as a fellow man of taste, it didn’t work. Dr. Lecter ignored him. “Our hosts are nowhere to be seen, they’ve left us with inadequate servants, and now the olives--”

**_"Silence!"_ **

A voice  boomed out. It wasn’t the voice of anyone in the party and although they could all hear it as clear as a bell, it was not coming from anyone in the room. Crawford bolted to his feet and held his hand near his hip. Graham wondered if he was armed or just used to being armed most of the time. 

The voice went on--

> _ Please give your full attention to the following charges.  _
> 
> _ Matthew Brown, on the day of April 23rd, 1929 you killed Ivan James Miggs _
> 
> _ Frederick Chilton, on the day of November 9th, 1931 you caused the death of Peter Bernardone and Randall Tier _
> 
> _ Jack Crawford, on the day of October 30th, 1927 you caused the death of Beverly Katz _
> 
> _ Francis Dolarhyde, on the day of May 1st, 1923 you killed Augusta Dolarhyde _
> 
> _ Bedelia DuMaurier, on the day of March 11th, 1925 you killed Neil Franks _
> 
> _ Hannibal Lecter, on the day of April 14th, 1926 you killed Jeremiah Olmstead _
> 
> _ Frederika Lounds, on the day of June 18th, 1930 you caused the death of Kitty LaFontaine _
> 
> _ Abel Gideon, on the day of November 22nd, 1917 you killed Catherine Gideon, Morris Whitehall and Ethel Whitehall _
> 
> _ Will Graham, on the day of September 5, 1925 you killed Garrett Jacob Hobbs. _
> 
> _ Mason Verger, on February 7th of this year you caused the death of baby boy Verger _
> 
> _ These indictments stand against you  _
> 
>  

There was a crash in the hall.

Francis was crumpled on the floor holding his head.

“Someone help him to his feet,” Dr. Chilton said.

Crawford grabbed him around the upper arm, but wasn’t content to get him to his feet. He hauled up and then shook the distressed man. “Who said that?”

Questions were hurled at the man. “Was that our host?” “Where is he?” Who else is here?”

Bedelia stepped in. “I think I can shed light on the situation.” Crawford reluctantly let go of Francis, who slumped against the wall but did not fall again to the floor.

Bedelia led then to the study next door to the drawing room. Mounted trophies looked down on them from the walls with their sightless eyes. Bedelia took no notice of them and directed them to a large old Victrola-style record player. The trumpet was pressed against the wall. When they moved it, they could see there were several holes drilled in the wall between the two rooms.

“Clever,” said Verger.

“That came from a recording?” Miss Lounds asked.

Bedelia dropped the needle on the record. “ _ Silence! Please give your attention _ \--”

“Oh, turn it off!” said Dr. Chilton.

“I need a drink,” said Miss Lounds and headed back to the drawing room.

 

“Bedelia,” said Dr. Chilton. “I demand to know what’s going on here. Why have we been invited to this island just to have pernicious lies flung at us? Not my idea of a good way to treat guests.”

“Are they lies, Dr. Chilton?” Miss Lounds said. 

“Of course. I don’t even recognize the names. Funny if I was supposed to be mad enough to kill them.”

“Speaking of names,” Graham said, turning to Crawford. “I didn’t hear the name Ellington.”

“All right then, you have me,” Crawford said. “My name isn’t Ellington, its Crawford. Jack Crawford.”

“Then why are you going around with another name?”

“It's a man’s right to call himself whatever he wants,” Crawford said. “There’s nothing nefarious in it.”

“Crawford, alias Ellington, has started the unburdening,” Miss Lounds said. “Is no one else going to confess?” 

“Not to you,” Dr. Lecter said, mirth in his voice.

“What do you mean?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“There were quite a few accusations made on that record,” Miss Lounds said. “We’ve already had Dr. Chilton’s denial. Anyone else want to deny or confirm the indictments against them.”

“Why don’t you confess?” Gideon said.

Miss Lounds smiled wickedly and leaned against the sideboard. “I can see how someone might think I killed Kitty LaFontaine.”

“Is that the actress?” Matthew Brown asked. “The one who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge? I remember that there was some scandal and she killed herself with the shame of it.”

“I give you my word I wasn't there to push her off the ledge--”

“But you did publish her scandal in your column,” Dr. Lecter said. “That’s what I believe Mr. Brown was getting at.”

Miss Lounds lit another cigarette, her own this time. “She was with child out of wedlock. Kitty was planning to have the child in secret and give it to her sister. Then she would adopt her “niece” when the child was older. The wife of the baby’s father heard and she was not pleased. She told me all about it because she wanted her husband’s name to be smeared so she would get good terms in the divorce.”

“When Kitty heard that her secret was out, she jumped to her death,” Graham said.

Miss Lounds nodded.

“Don't you regret causing her so much pain?” Matthew Brown asked.

Miss Lounds actually smiled. “No. Why would I?’

“Knowing what you now know,” Graham said. “That printing the story would drive her to suicide, would you still do it again?”

“Of course,” Miss Lounds said. “That was the story that got me my own column. It was big news. She was having a baby with a married man. I know people do that kind of thing all the time. The difference here was that I had a source. That wife was ready to talk,and I was ready to listen. I don't find any shame in that.”

“Shouldn't you?” Gideon asked. “The poor woman committed suicide as a result of your column.”

“That was the result of the choices she made in her life. If she was so ashamed, she should not have been carrying on with a married man. I was just the one who told the world about it. I don't think that that's a sin of any kind.”

“Well, Miss Lounds isn't that well rather cold-blooded of you?” Dr. Chilton asked.

Miss Lounds stood up straight and took an advancing step towards Dr. Chilton.”Let me ask you a question: if I was in the family way with a married man’s baby and I had contacted Miss Kitty Fontaine, famous movie actress, and begged her for her help do you think she would have helped me?”

“Well that's a bit different...”

“How? Why should I have to give more mercy or consideration when it's them that have all of the advantages in life? I don't think I should have to. If I felt that way I should get out of journalism altogether.”

There was a sob from the hallway. Crawford told Bedelia to bring Francis in the drawing room. She led him to a chair and pressed a drink into his hand.

“I’m with Ms. Lounds,” Matthew Brown said suddenly. “I’ll admit I know the name Miggs. He was an inmate in an asylum I worked in. I was an orderly in an institution very much like one Dr. Chilton runs.”

“Rough business there,” Chilton said.

“With all due respect, Dr. Chilton, you don’t know the half of it. Down in the cellar is where I worked, where they kept the worst of them. Miggs was one of them. He tried to throttle another inmate with a chain from his leg irons. I subdued him. When he finally went limp he was unconscious. His heart gave out. He would have throttled me, given half the chance.”

"So far, these supposed crimes seem to fall under professional malpractice at the worst," Dr. Lecter said.

“Yes,” Graham said and when all the eyes shifted to him he cleared his throat. “I used to be a police officer. Garrett Jacob Hobbs was--” He closed his eyes. The memories came unbidden. The scene was all dark shadows, although he knew it had been daylight. “I shot him. I had to. He had a knife to his daughter’s throat and he had already killed before. He wouldn’t have hesitated to slit her throat and kill me in the bargain.”

“How gruesome,” Dr. Lecter said, without any horror or outrage in his voice. “I too claimed my supposed victim in the course of my profession. I am a surgeon and Jeremiah Olmstead was a patient who died on my table, through no fault of my own.”

“You weren’t intoxicated?” Miss Lounds asked.

“Certainly not,” he said drawing up straighter. “The ethics board cleared me of any wrongdoing.”

Verger barked out a laugh.

“Something funny, Verger?” Gideon asked.

“I just wanted to know if anyone did kill their victim. Anyone going to unburden their breast in the company of old friends?”

“What about you?” Dr. Lecter said. “Did you kill a baby?”

Verger laughed again. “The baby was a misunderstanding, an error in judgement.” He saw the horrified looks some were giving him and added, “This child was my nephew, the son of my sister. I simply insisted my sister be confined at home, the good old fashioned way, when it was time to be delivered of her child.”

“Did she want to?” Miss Lounds asked.

“She didn’t have much choice in the matter. It was a shame that there were complications. I should have known my sister was incapable of easily delivering a healthy child in the way nature intended. An unnatural woman all around. By the time we called the doctor, the child had expired and Margot herself was in a bad state. She will never bear children, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t seem sorry,” Gideon said.

Verger turned on Gideon, his face suddenly cold. “What about you, then?”

“Yes,” Dr. Chilton said unctuously. “Why don’t you tell us, Gideon? Because if you don’t, I will. That’s right, Mr. Gideon, your case was quite interesting. I had dinner with the head of the asylum you were in and heard the whole story. It took me a while to place you, since I had never seen your face, not even in the newspapers, but when I heard the names of your victims, I knew. Ladies and gentlemen, if we are looking for a true murderer, here he stands before you.” Gideon stared daggers at Chilton, but remained silent. “Abel Gideon stabbed to death his entire family on Thanksgiving Day. His wife and her parents both.”

Scattered gasps were heard through the room.

“Do you want to defend yourself?” Crawford asked.

“He can’t,” Dr. Chilton said. “He claims to remember none of it, which is why he is walking the earth a free man instead of being hanged.”

“I was ten years in an asylum,” Gideon said. “I didn’t walk from court a free man.”

“Of all of us, there is only one true murderer?” Miss Lounds said. “How disappointing.” She nodded at Jack Crawford. “Who was Beverly Katz?”

“She worked for me,” Crawford said. “I’m a police officer. Beverly was killed in the line of duty. It was a shame, but she knew it was a dangerous job when she took it.”

“Augusta Dolarhyde was my grandmother!” Francis gasped. “But I swear I didn’t kill her. She was old and she died. I loved her. She raised me.”

All eyes in the room went to Bedelia, the only one who had not addressed her charges in any way. She raised one eyebrow.

“If you are waiting for me to try to justify myself, you will have a long wait.”

“You have nothing to say?” Miss Lounds asked.

“No.”

“Well,” Ms. Lounds said. “I propose we raise a glass in toast.” Like automatons, the guests reached for their drinks. “To the fine upstanding citizens in this room. May no one have the misfortune of crossing us.”

Miss Lounds downed her drink all in in one shot, tipping her head back. The rest of the party took awkward sips or just held their glasses. For one moment Freddie Lounds was triumphant. She didn’t know what was going on but she knew this was not going to be a standard socialite party where she would have to wrack her brains trying to make long descriptions of the decor sound interesting. Things were happening, and she was in the golden center of it.

Suddenly, her hand flew up to her throat. Her eyes went wide and she started to make choking noises. She dropped her glass. Someone yelled out “Hit her on the back,” but before anyone could do anything, she fell to the floor, her face turning blue. After one last gurgling choke her body relaxed. Dr. Lecter went over to her. He checked her eyes and the pulse point in her wrist and throat. He turned back to the group.

“She’s dead.”

No one moved. Dr. Lecter brought his face close to hers and from Graham’s vantage point it looked as if he were going to kiss her. Instead he sniffed her mouth. 

“I smell bitter almonds,” Dr. Lecter said, straightening up and re-buttoning his jacket. “This was no natural death. It was poison.”


	2. Chapter 2

  
  


No one could speak for a long moment. It seemed incredible that the redheaded woman, so full of defiant life, was now dead. 

“Are you sure, Dr. Lecter?” Crawford asked.

“As a medical doctor, I am quite sure. However if someone would like to render a second opinion…” He extended a graceful hand towards Dr. Chilton, who looked away.

“We need to call the police,” Gideon said.

“After we destroy that record,” Brown said.

“There will be no destruction of evidence,” Crawford said. “Until the local police arrive, I am in charge of the scene.” He held out his handkerchief to Graham, who happened to be standing next to him. “I’ll need you to help me. Take custody of that glass and the bottle it was poured from.”

Graham demurred. “I’m not a policeman anymore.”

“You’re all I have.” 

Graham took the handkerchief and collected the items as instructed.

“Dr. Lecter,” Crawford said, “would you help me move Miss Lounds to her room? I see no reason why she needs to sit here on the floor until the police arrive.”

“About that, gentlemen,” Bedelia said. “Stag’s Head Island has no telephone service. It is cut off from the mainland entirely. Even our electric power comes from a generator.”

“How do we tell the mainland we want the boat to come for us?” Brown asked.

“We put up a lamp, visible from the mainland. Narracott is on the watch for it, and if he can come, he will.”

“Why wouldn’t he be able to come?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“Storms, sir,” Bedelia said.

In the beat of silence, they all listened to the patter of rain against the windows.

“Has the wind picked up?” Brown asked.

“Let’s hope not,” Crawford said.

 

Moving Miss Lounds was easier said than done. Crawford grasped her under the arms, but when Dr. Lecter took her by the ankles it became clear this was not a good way to decently transport a lady. After grappling a bit, Dr. Lecter lightly shouldered Crawford out of the way, taking Lounds’ whole weight in his arms, holding her as a groom might carry a bride across the threshold.

“Do you have her?” Carwford asked.

“Simply clear the path ahead of me,” the doctor said. Graham followed behind with the glass and bottle.

_ He’s strong _ , thought Graham,  _ stronger than he looks. _

As Miss Lounds made her pass through the room, they were all silent except for Francis, who was blubbering incoherently into a pillow.

“For God’s sake, can you do something about him?” Dr. Chilton said to Bedelia. “He’s getting on my nerves.”

“I don’t know, I rather like it,” Verger said and was ignored.

Bedelia squared her shoulders. She understood Francis was her responsibility by virtue of her being the Neemes' representative on the island, but she wasn’t happy about playing nursemaid.

“I’ll put him to bed,” Bedelia said. “And then I’ll be back down, for the tidying.”

“I’m fine, thanks, if you were wondering, Bedelia,” Verger said, pouring himself another drink. “I’ll make do without the olives. One must bear up in times of trial.”

“How can you drink that?” Brown asked him. “We don’t know how Miss Lounds was poisoned.”

“It’s a different bottle. Graham took the poisoned one.”

“I had the same drink Miss Lounds did and I’m fine,” Gideon said. “She put the stuff in her own glass, not the bottle.”

“You think she killed herself?” Brown asked.

“Of course,” Gideon said. “Couldn’t be plainer. Her sins came home to her and she couldn’t take it.”

“Looked to me she was taking it fine,” Dr. Chilton said.

“What other option is there?” Gideon asked. “Either she did it herself, it was an accident, or one of us did it. It wasn’t an accident because several of us drank from the same bottle and no one here has any reason to do it, so it could only have been a suicide.”

Verger nodded at the spot where Miss Lounds had recently lain. “Look in her purse.”

Surprised that he was actually talking sense, the men took Verger’s suggestion. Gideon grabbed the bag and opened it over the coffee table. Several items fell out: a ladies handkerchief, the lighter they had seen earlier, her own cigarette case, a compact and a lipstick. Gideon opened the compact. It was only pressed powder.

“What were we supposed to find, Verger?” Gideon asked.

“Pills. Or an empty pill bottle.”

“She could have wrapped the dose up in that,” Brown said, pointing to the handkerchief. “We can have the doctor smell it when he gets back.”

 

Bedelia tucked Francis into bed. Dr. Lecter, on his way back from Miss Lounds’ room, stuck his head in.

“How is he?”

Francis lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, tears leaking out of his eyes. Every once in awhile he murmured to himself and a new wave of sobs overcame him.

“Do you have any sleeping stuff?” Bedelia asked. “He might need it to get through the night.”

“Of course. I’ll get my bag.”

 

Francis barely registered the pills and glass of water pressed against his lips. He was back in the past, with his grandmother.

_ Grandmother. I have tried not to think about her for many years. I’m not a child anymore. Back then, I was so afraid of her. She was a giant. But she only became smaller while I became bigger. Bigger than she ever was.  _

_ But her eyes. Her fearful eyes. Even after the fit of apoplexy that her power of speech, she could still look. It was enough to drive a man mad. When she was sleeping I couldn’t see her eyes. It was the only time I could be free. At first that’s all I wanted to do; closer her eyes forever. I was already pressing the pillow down on her sleeping face before I realized she would be dead if I kept going. Death was the only way to stop her from looking at me forever, but still I pressed down even harder… _

A medicated sleep overtook him. 

 

Bedelia went from Francis’ room to the dining room to clean up the dinner dishes. _Strange_ , she thought. _One of the pig figurines is missing._

 

In the drawing room, Dr. Lecter sniffed both the handkerchief and bag itself and declared them innocent.

“That doesn't prove anything, she could have had the stuff in her pocket,” Gideon said.

“Did her dress have pockets?” Graham asked.

“In order to dissolve, the dose would have had to be a loose powder, not in pill form,” Dr. Lecter said.

“Rather awkward to carry loose powder in one’s pockets,” Verger said. “I should know.”

“What does that mean?” Brown asked.

“He’s a doper,” Dr. Chilton said.

“Maybe we should have a look in your pockets, Verger,” Gideon said.

Verger swept his jacket away from his body and jutted his hip towards Gideon. “Come and see what you find.”

“That’s quite enough, Verger,” Dr. Chilton said.

“You’re quite welcome to check my pockets,” Verger said. “If I get to check all of yours.”

“No one is checking anyone’s pockets,” Crawford said. “Tomorrow we get on that boat and leave and let the local police handle this.”

“Tomorrow’s boat might bring our hosts,” Brown said.

“I have some questions for them, all right,” Gideon said.

 

Graham caught up with Bedelia in the hallway outside of the dining room.

“Did you set the lamp to summon the boat?” he asked.

“I’ll do that now.”

“Allow me.”

“You wouldn’t know what to do.”

“Then let me come with you.”

Bedelia shook her head. “It's only taking a walk and hanging a lamp, Mr. Graham. I think I can manage on my own.”

 

The party went to their respective rooms solemnly, making little talk between them. All that was heard in the hallway was the snick of door latches and the clicks of all those doors being locked.

 

Crawford lay on his bed, thinking of Beverly Katz. She was a good police officer. Smart, too. 

_ I think I can do it, Jack. I think I can find this killer I have a hunch. _

_ I can’t get a warrant on your hunch. _

_ Maybe we don’t need a warrant. I can sneak in. He won’t even know I’ve been there. _

_ That’s illegal, Beverly. As your boss, I can’t condone this. Do not ask me for permission. _

_ Well, then I may come back later and ask your forgiveness. _

_ I don’t control what you do on your off time. Am I being clear? _

_ Yes, sir. _

It was the last conversation they had. The next time he saw her, she was dead. 

_ It was horrible. The monster had savaged her, chopped into pieces. Chopped her into slices...  _

Crawford told Internal Affairs the literal truth, that he said she should not pursue the suspect without a warrant. The blame rested squarely on Beverly and her rash actions. It was blamed on her being “emotional” and “impulsive.” 

_ And I just sat back, letting them say it. Letting her name be slandered to save my own skin... _

 

Graham woke in darkness. By checking the watch on his nightstand, he could see it was nearly 8am, but from the lack of light in the room he would have thought it was the middle of the night. The darkness was easily explained by the lashing wind and rain against his window. He couldn’t see the water from his window, but he imagined it was quite a squall. The boat might not get to them today if it didn’t blow over. He flicked the switch on his lamp, but it didn’t light. To be sure, he got out of bed and tried the wall switch. The overhead light also failed to illuminate.  _ The power’s gone _ , he thought, _ the storm of course _ ,  _ but Bedelia said the island had a generator. The storm shouldn’t affect it. _

He dressed by the light of a flashlight held in his teeth and went down to see if anyone else was awake yet.

 

Bedelia was alone in the dining room, setting out plates by the light of two hurricane lamps.

“You’re the first one up,” Bedelia said.

“Except for you.”

She nodded and said, “I imagine there was some restless sleepers last night.”

“It was trying for us all,” Graham said. Bedelia turned her back to him, and started folding napkins.

“What happened to the little piggies?” Graham asked her. “Two are missing.”

“Oh,” she said, turning. “That’s odd. There was one missing last night.”

“There are two gone now,” Graham said.

“Perhaps we have a thief as well as a murderer in our midst, taking one at a time so we won’t notice.” 

“It wouldn’t be hard to be sneaky in the dark. Did something happen to the generator?”

“Nothing that I know of. Francis is supposed to pour gasoline in the generator each morning, but he had a rough night as well. I thought I might let him sleep in since no one was awake yet.” She checked her watch. “It is about time he started his day.”

For some reason, Graham felt uncomfortable sitting alone in the lamplight and offered to accompany Bedelia to rouse Francis. This time she accepted.

 

Moments later, Bedelia’s scream sent bolts unlatching all along the hallway.

Men rushed out of their rooms in various states of dress. 

“What’s going on?” Crawford demanded.

Bedelia pointed to the bed. Francis lay there, eyes open and unblinking, waxy in death. Perhaps feeling upstaged from the night before, Dr. Chilton advanced and checked the man for signs of life.

“He’s dead,” he pronounced.

“When we came in there was a pillow over his face,” Graham said. “Could he have accidentally smothered himself in his sleep?”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing in adults,” Dr. Lecter said. “That only happens when someone else is pressing on the pillow from above.”

“Someone killed him?” Bedelia said.

“We don’t know that,” Graham said.

Bedelia pointed at Dr. Lecter. “You gave Francis pills last night.”

“Ordinary sleeping pills, I assure you. Harmless as chamomile tea.”

“What else do you have in your bag, Doctor?” Gideon said.

“Wait,” Crawford said. “Before we start a witch hunt let's figure out what we know.”

“Can we do it someplace else?” Brown asked.

Bedelia covered Francis’ face with the bedsheet and they all went down to the dining room.

 

Bedelia laid out what provisions she could provide without electricity: juice, milk, fruit and pastries. Hot food would have to wait for the generator to be turned back on.

“So,” Crawford said. “What do we know?” He looked at the faces around him, lit by flickering lamplight.  _ Haunted faces _ . “What do we know about Mr. and Mrs. Neeme. Bedelia?”

“I was contracted through an agency to be the Neemes’ housekeeper. I only communicated with them through letters. I never met them in person.”

“Do you have those letters?”

“I kept the ones with the instructions for the party.”

“May I see them please?”

Bedelia went to the sideboard, drew out a few sheets of paper and handed them to Crawford. He read the directions about greeting everyone and when to put the record on. 

“The directions stop here,” Crawford said. “Nothing after the record.”

“I suppose they thought they would be here by then.”

Crawford looked at the signature. “Signed Hannah Neeme.”

“Hannah. Good Christian name,” Verger said.

Graham looked over at Dr. Lecter. He hadn’t moved but something had changed. He was suddenly very present.  _ Like a dog with a scent, _ Graham thought.  _ He’s caught the trail of something. _

“I can assume Francis received a similar letter,” Crawford said. “How were the rest of you summoned?”

“An old friend wrote to me,” Verger said. “I won’t tell you exactly what he said was going on here, but I will say he sorely misrepresented the nature of this island gathering.”

“Did you keep the letter?” Crawford asked.

“I know better than that.”

“Did anyone keep their letters?”

Graham thought of his letter from Mr. Neeme, upstairs, in the pocket of his suitcase. But he couldn’t bring it out.

 

_ Dear Mr. Graham, _

_ I have heard of your work as an alienist and I find it intriguing. I have always found the study of human nature fascinating and I have what I believe is a unique opportunity for you to study the criminal mind up close. You would, of course, be required to work sub rosa. If you agree there will be communications to follow. _

_ Yours,  _

_ Nathaniel O. Neeme _

 

“I kept mine,” Brown said.

“Would you fetch it for me?” Crawford asked.

“Of course,” he said and left to fetch it.

“What about the rest of you?” Crawford asked.

“I was told this was a meeting of my supporters,” Gideon said. “There was a group of people who were lobbying to set me free from the asylum. I shall always be indebted to them and I was looking forward to meeting them.”

“Was your letter signed by Mr. Neeme?”

“It was. I remember thinking I didn’t recall that name, but there were many people who assisted me and it was over ten years ago.”

“I was here to watch Mrs. Neeme’s nerves,” Dr. Chilton said. “Neeme told me his wife was acting peculiar, but she had a mortal fear of doctors. I was to observe without letting on I was observing.”

“I was summoned for the same reason,” Dr. Lecter said. “I was to look for any physical signs of illness in Mrs. Neeme. Like Dr. Chilton, I was to do so surreptitiously.”

“Graham?” Crawford asked.

“Like Verger, summoned by a friend.”

By this time Matthew Brown had returned with his letter. Crawford read it aloud. 

“Mr. Brown,

I hear you have experience with those who are mentally disturbed. I would like to engage your services for my wife, who is unquiet in the head. She is deathly afraid of going to an asylum, so you would have to keep your mission a secret. I will call you my valet, but I would want you to be on hand to help me with my wife when she has one of her episodes. I would be willing to pay you double what you ask, both for your discretion and for coming to such a desolate place as Stag’s Head Island. If these terms are agreeable, there will be a boat waiting on the pier on Tuesday, September--” Crawford skipped past these instructions. “Hope to see you soon, Nathaniel O. Neeme.”

“Some wife Neeme has,” Gideon said under his breath. “Nervy. Mental. Sick in body and mind.”

“Do you comment on wives, Mr. Gideon?” Dr. Chilton said.

Dr. Lecter stood. All eyes went to him. “I feel the need to point out something about our hosts. Something which I believe we all already suspect. Our hosts are not who they say they are. In fact, it is my assertion that no such people as Hannah or Nathaniel Neeme exist.” He looked around the table. “Who here knows their French? Take our host’s initials.  _ N.O. Neeme _ . And his wife  _ Hannah Neeme _ . What does that sound like?”

“ _ Anonyme _ ,” Graham said.

“What does that mean?” Brown asked.

“In french it means ‘anonymous’,” Graham said.


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

_ “Is this a joke?”  _

_ “Where is the blasted boat?” “ _

_ Where are the blasted lights?” _

Acknowledging out loud the suspicions they all had been quietly nursing, opened the floodgates, and they started talking over each other. Graham and Lecter exchanged looks.

“Settle down,everyone” Crawford bellowed. When he had his quiet, he spoke again. “What we need to do is get off this island and call in the local authorities. Bedelia. What do we know about the boat and the lights?”

“The boat hasn’t arrived and the generator needs to be topped off with gasoline and restarted. It was Francis’ job.”

“Do you know how to do that?”

“Yes. There isn’t much to know. But it involves lifting the heavy gas can. I also need wood for the kitchen stove. It was Francis’ job to chop it and bring it in.”

“I understand,” Crawford said. He sized up the men around him. Of the two younger men, Brown was leaner than Verger, but Crawford doubted he could get Verger to do any physical work. “Brown. Go and start that generator. Get us our lights back. Now someone should go down and make sure the signal lamp for the boat is still on. There was quite a storm last night.”

“I can go,” Graham said.

“I can go with him,” Dr. Chilton said.

“I don’t think lighting a lamp is difficult,” Graham said.

“Humor me,” Dr. Chilton said. “I could use the air.”

 

The rain had slacked somewhat, but the sea was still choppy. There was still too much rain to talk, so the men proceeded down to the pier in silence, wearing slickers they found in the entryway coat closet. There were exactly two.  _ Every accommodation made _ , Graham thought giddily.  _ Stop that, now. Mustn't lose my head. _

"That was clever work, Graham," Dr. Chilton said. "Catching on to the punny name of our alleged host."

Graham shrugged. "It wasn't that clever of me," he said. "Dr. Lecter led me to the answer, practically gift-wrapped it for me."

"I think Dr. Lecter might know more about the situation than he lets on." Chilton looked out from under his brows, trying to gauge Graham's reaction.

"He might," Graham said. "Any of us might. Or he might just be devilishly clever and is one step ahead of us in figuring everything out. It might be worth keeping an eye on him, just for safety sake." He gave a dry chuckle. "If he ducks, we all should duck."

When the two men got down to the pier, they didn’t see the lamp. After some searching of the bushes they found it, hidden by brush and smashed. The glass was broken and the metal was warped.

“We should have brought another one,” Chilton said.

“How could we have known?” Graham said. “Where’s the chain? Bedelia said it would be suspended by a chain.”

They looked around the bushes again and even peeked into the water off the pier.

“Here’s one of the links,” Graham said, holding up a bit of curved metal he found wedged between the boards of the pier. “It's been cut. So it wasn’t the wind that smashed our signal lamp.”

“Who would want to cut us off from civilization? Everyone wants to get off the island.”

“Everyone we know about,” Graham said. “But what if there were someone else on this island secreted somewhere?. Call him Mr. Neeme, for lack of a better name. If he lured us here, he doesn’t want us to go. Not yet.”

“To what end, Graham?”

“I don’t know,” Graham said, pocketing the cut chain link. “We don’t know his game, but we are in the middle of playing it already.”

 

Back up at the house, the lights were back on. Bedelia had made coffee, which the shivering Graham and Dr. Chilton accepted eagerly.

“Our thief is back at it, I see,” Graham said to Bedelia. “There’s another pig missing from the table.”

“So there is,” Bedelia said. Her tone and expression were impossible to read.

“My money’s on Verger,” Graham whispered. “He seems the type who would steal for his own amusement.” Bedelia rewarded him with a chilly smile

 

Crawford was stewing, looking over the letters he had from ‘Neeme.’ Dr. Chilton had told him alone, so as not to alarm the others, that someone had purposely smashed the lamp. Graham was back down at the pier, replacing it with a new one. There was no guarantee that one wouldn’t be smashed as well. 

“Graham had the idea that there might be someone else on this island,” Dr. Chilton said to Crawford. “Someone who is hiding somewhere and causing mischief. Trying to frighten us, I’d wager.”

“He couldn’t have known Miss Lounds was going to poison herself or Francis was going to die in his sleep.”

“He made that record,” Dr. Chilton said. “He intends to scare us to death. He’s already done it twice and he’s going to keep on doing it, unless we flush him out.”

 

Crawford went around the house to gather everyone in the dining room. Graham returned from hanging the signal lamp. Gideon and Verger had both dressed and were sitting in their rooms, making entries in their diaries. When summoned, they came along promptly.

Crawford watched them all come in.  _ 4...5...6  _ There were eight people left. He should be counting seven people in front of him.

“Where’s Brown?” Crawford asked. The party looked at each other and started talking amongst themselves: “I haven’t seen him all morning...is he in his room...no I checked..is he still out chopping wood...it shouldn't take that long...the power came on ages ago…”

“Excuse me,” Crawford said, he went up to his room and took the gun from his bag. It was comforting to hold it in his hand again. 

In the quiet, Dr. Lecter leaned over and said into Graham’s ear “What do you think of this party so far?” The joke was in poor taste, but Graham smiled nonetheless. Humor was one of the most common vents for tension. And there was tension. Graham could feel it, crackling in the air.

“I don’t care for it much,” Graham said. “So far.”

There was a general exclamation of alarm on the room when Crawford returned with a gun in his hand.

“We need to search for Matthew Brown.”

“Crawford! Why are you carrying a weapon?” Dr. Chilton exclaimed.

“I’m a police officer. I’m always armed.” Crawford put it in his pocket. He hated that he didn’t have a proper holster. “I might as well tell you all I was hired by Neeme or whatever his name is, to provide security for the party.”

“Bang-up job,” Verger said.

“I cannot be responsible for a suicide and an accidental death.”

“Is that what we are still saying it is?” Dr. Lecter asked with mock innocence. 

“Then why do you need to look for Brown armed?” Graham asked.

“Just in case,” Crawford said. “Who’s coming with me?” 

They could either go out into the rain with a man holding a gun or stay inside without protection. They hadn’t thought of themselves as defenseless before, not until Crawford had flashed his gun.

“I’ll go with you,” Verger said, rising. “Might be fun. Who knows what we’ll find.”

 

They found Matthew Brown in the first place they looked: the woodshed. They also found the missing chain from the signal lamp. It was wrapped around Brown’s neck. His face was purple and his tongue protruded. Crawford looked at Verger to see if he was going to fall to pieces, but he just said “Funny to use a chain when there’s an ax handy.”

Crawford wasn’t happy about his tone, but he made a good point.

“Guess there’s no doubt now.” Verger said. “This is murder.”

Verger draped his handkerchief over Brown’s disfigured face. The chain was wrapped twice around his neck, so rather than unwind it, they left it in place and the three of them made a light clinking as they went up to the house and into Brown’s room.

 

“We found Matthew Brown,” Crawford said to the people in the dining room.

“He’s dead, isn't he?” Bedelia said.

“What makes you say that?”

“He didn’t come in with you.”

“Actually he did,” Verger said. “But he was dead tired so Crawford and I put him right to bed.”

“Matthew Brown is dead,” Crawford said. “And this time there is no doubt he was murdered.”

“I knew it!” Dr. Chilton said. “Neeme is somewhere on this island and he means to kill us all!”

“We need to search the island,” Crawford said. “We should split up in groups of two.”

“Why?” Gideon asked.

“Because he thinks it might be one of us,” Graham said.

“What would breaking into groups of two accomplish?” Gideon asked.

“Best case scenario: safety,” Dr. Lecter said. “The killer wouldn’t want to kill his partner. Too suspicious. Worst case scenario, the killer does kill his partner and then we know who the killer is.”

“Let’s not stir up a panic, Dr. Lecter,” Crawford said

“There’s an odd number of us,” Dr. Chilton said.

“I’ll stay behind and fix lunch,” Bedelia said.

“Alone?” Crawford asked.

“If you all watch your partners, I’ll be totally safe,” she said. “In the kitchen. With all the knives.”

“And if Mr. Neeme is on the island?”

“If he kills me, then you’ll know he’s here.”

Crawford divided them into teams and gave them their assignments. He and Graham would check the north side of the island and Dr. Chilton and Gideon would check the south.

Dr. Lecter and Verger would search the house top to bottom. Dr. Lecter gave Verger a dubious look, which received a wide grin in response.

“Why am I paired with the only murderer?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“The only murderer you know of,” Dr. Lecter said.

“Please,” Crawford said. “Doctor Lecter. Refrain.”


	4. Chapter 4

 

Graham and Crawford walked out the front door shoulder to shoulder with Gideon and Dr. Chilton right behind them. Graham took a moment to look out across the water. It was funny to see the vista with its open sky and open water, the mainland looking so close one would think they could reach out and touch it. But make no mistake, they were are confined as if they were behind concrete wall and bars of iron.

Graham felt the intrusive wiggle of the killer's thoughts. It was a satisfied feeling. An anticipatory feeling. He could savor their fear.  _ Trapped. You are so thouroughly trapped. There's no stopping this now.  _

Graham screwed his eye closed and spoke a bit too loudly. “What are we looking for?” 

“Anyplace someone could be hiding,” Crawford said. “There are some outbuildings there. We can check those.”

They checked the woodshed and then what looked like a tool shed filled with gardening and landscaping equipment. All the tools were in pristine, probably unused, condition. There weren't that many hiding places, but they searched the immediate grounds, o pening any boxes or barrels remotely big enough to hold a human.

“What is your opinion on this, Crawford?" Graham asked. "As a man of the law?”

“Matthew Brown was definitely murdered. That makes me think the others were murdered too.”

“But why and how?”

Crawford raised an eyebrow at Graham. “Isn’t that your line of work?”

“I’m not a police officer anymore.”

“That's not what I was talking about," he said. He had his hands in his pockets, having given up the pretense of searching for Neeme. Instead, his eyes searched to make contact with Grahams and were finding it a rough go. "I meant your work as an alienist.”

Graham didn’t like being caught out. Anger flamed in his eyes, but he tamped it down before Crawford saw it.

“Yes, I know who you are,” Crawford said. “Don’t know if I believe that rot, but others swear by it. I’m willing to be open-minded. One never knows. So using your powers of deduction, who do you think did it?”

“I still think we may find Mr. Neeme hiding on the island,” Graham said. “Failing that, that, if we accept that Francis was also killed that means the most likely suspect is Dr. Lecter.”

“He is a cool customer,” Crawford said. 

“I'm not considering Miss Lounds," Graham said. "Not because I think she committed suicide. Suicide would be very out of character for a woman like her. Anyone could have slipped something into her drink. None of us were on guard then. The next victim was Francis. Lecter admitted giving Francis sleeping pills.”

“I took a look at those pills. My wife has the same ones on her nightstand and Bedelia said she saw Dr. Lecter give Francis two pills. Only two pills.”

“We don’t know if they were the same pills. One white tablet looks very like another.”

Crawford frowned thoughtfully.  “Not bad for an unqualified alienist.”

“I do the job better than a lot of so-called experts.”

“Why did you leave the program?”

“I was asked to leave.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t like my methods. I challenged them on points they found unassailable.” Graham let the lid of a box fall with a crash.

“I heard you were unfit for the strain.”

“From who?” Graham demanded.

Crawford shrugged. “Around.”

“You shouldn’t listen to rumors, Crawford.”

“Are you unfit? Will you buckle under the strain? I need to know if I can count on you in a tough spot.”

“I’m as fit as any man.”

“You have an itchy trigger finger. You took out Hobbs. Are you always that jumpy? Looking at you now I’d say yes.”

Graham took a step back. “Are you trying to provoke me?”

“Why would I do that? You could be the killer.”

“You are the one with the gun.” Graham dusted off his hands. “I’ve had just about enough of this. The next time we do something like this, pair me with someone else.”

Graham started to walk away.

“You can’t leave,” Crawford called.

“I can,” Graham said.

“If I show up dead they will think you killed me.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

 

Verger kicked at an ottoman as Dr. Lecter looked in the closet.

“Wouldn’t this be easier if we split up?” Verger asked.

“We are supposed to keep watch on each other.”

Verger huffed and flopped on the bed. Dr. Lecter ignored him. Moments later, Verger stood.

“I need to use the facilities,” Verger said and walked out of the room.

“Suit yourself,” Dr. Lecter said and continued his search.

 

Coming inside, Will almost ran into Dr. Lecter, who had just finished examining the coat closet. They came so close, Graham put a hand up against Lecter’s chest to keep from crashing into him.

“Oh, hello,” Graham said, withdrawing his hand and looking away for a moment. “Where’s Verger?”

“Using the facilities as an excuse not to work. Where’s Crawford?”

“We had a falling out.”

Dr. Lecter raised one eyebrow a fraction.

“I left him alive and healthy,” Graham said.

“It appears as though our pairs are falling to pieces,” Dr. Lecter said.

“Hopefully not all of them,” Graham said.

 

“Dammit,” Dr. Chilton said. “I’ve turned my ankle.”

“Those aren’t good shoes for hiking,” Gideon said. Chilton had slid on the rocky path, sending a small cascade of stones downhill and very nearly falling headlong.

“I didn’t know I would be hiking on this trip when I packed for it.”

"Well if Neeme wanted to kill you by having you break your neck, he'll be disappointed."

"I still as though my neck's in the noose as long as I'm on this island."

"Its not a good feeling," Gideon said.

"Say, Gideon," Dr. Chilton said. "Do you really not remember what happened with your family."

"I don't," Gideon said. "Bits and pieces here and there but nothing that makes sense. I used to curse myself for not remembering, since I couldn't help my lawyers and supporters help me. I know the feeling of having the noose dangling in front of me all too well. Lawyers and alienists and people who were just plain curious would ask me what did I remember. They used to ask me over and over in different ways, but it never came back to me. But now that it is all said and done its a blessing, isn't it?"

Dr. Chilton looked up from rubbing his ankle. It was sprained but not broken. "Do you think its just that you are here? Called up on the carpet for a crime you can't remember and that you have paid for with ten years of your life?"

"I don't know if justice comes into it."

"I disagree. That record says otherwise. Neeme thinks we have all gotten away with murder."

"Mr. Neeme is a madman," Gideon said. 

"That may be so," Dr. Chilton said, feeling, not for the first time, a knot of dread in his stomach.

“You can stay here and I’ll do the rest of the search and I’ll come back for you,” Gideon said. “You should see anyone coming from a while off.”

“What could I do if someone approaches me with murder in their eyes, hobbled as I am.”

Gideon found a large rock and put it within Dr. Chilton’s reach.

"Throw this as if your life depended on it."

 

Bedelia bustled around the kitchen. She could make eggs for lunch, since they hadn’t had them for breakfast, but it was such a bother and she was so tired. Maybe she hadn’t slept well. _Was I thinking about Neil? Dreaming about him again?_

Hearing his name again--and being accused of killing him!--brought it all back up again. Things she hadn't thought about in years. Things she didn't want to think about ever again. 

She turned her attention back to lunch. She  took her coffee into the dining room and decided to sit down for a moment before she started lunch. Maybe cold cuts. There was cold ham and tongue in the icebox. They should eat that soon, if the electricity would be spotty.

_ Tongue. Bedelia are you going to serve them tongue? Can you stand to touch it? _

_ Poor Neil. So frail and sickly. He hadn’t been the same after the accident. It was getting hard to remember what he was like before. I can only remember him up on his horse. His father shot the horse after the accident but what good did that do? It didn't bring Neil back to the way he was. The doctors said he wouldn’t get better. Aunt Margaret was a good sort. She wanted family to look after Neil. They would care for him so much better than a paid companion who was only doing it for the money. If only she had known.  _

_ Neil: unmoving, insensible to the world, but somehow still needing to be fed and cleaned up after. The same thing day after day… _

_ He used to be so alive! It was a shame to watch him wasting away. Auntie had so much praise for how well I cared for him. And I did, for a while. _

_ That day, his last, he was in his favorite chair, drowsing with his head tipped back. I didn’t even think about what I would do, I just did it. It was just a small flick and press. My finger under his tongue, pushing it down his throat. A man with all his faculties would have easily woken up and dislodged his own tongue, but Neil didn’t have all his faculties. Did he even know what was happening to him? _

_ And then, after it all, not even getting the money Auntie promised! ‘Did you really expect a legacy, Bedelia? You were with us for such a short time.’ The small amount she gave--a month's pay--was an insult! _

The coffee was not doing its work. Bedelia felt sleepier than ever.

_ Poor Neil. Asleep one minute and dead the next. Did he feel himself choking?  _

_ Did it feel like this? _

Bedelia opened her eyes. There was a rag over her nose and something being shoved down her throat. She tried to get at the hands that were holding her tight against the chair back. It was no use. The grip tightened until her vision first crowded with stars and then went black.

 

Crawford met up with Gideon outside of the house and the two of them managed to get Dr. Chilton back up the hill. Once on flat land he could manage, if he had his cane.

“I can get that for you,” Gideon and went to Chilton’s room to retrieve it.

Gideon was surprised to find Dr. Lecter and Mr. Graham in Dr. Chilton’s room.

“Oh hello,” Gideon said. “What are you doing here?”

“What do you think, man?” Graham said. “Searching for Neeme just like everyone else.”

“Where’s Verger?” he asked Dr. Lecter.

“He abandoned me. Apparently he does not find my company sufficiently stimulating.”

Dr. Lecter could hear Gideon’s thoughts almost as clearly as if he had spoken them out loud.  _ Verger better not be the next one found dead, or you are in for it... _

 

Verger was not the next one found dead. He appeared, pink and scrubbed from his bath around the same time Dr. Chilton found Bedelia. All the sea air had given him quite the appetite, so he had popped into the dining room to check on lunch. His good appetite was then entirely extinguished by what he found in the dining room.

It was grotesque. Bedelia’s eyes were open and staring, frozen in a moment of panic and horror. Below her eyes...Dr. Chilton couldn’t even look. There was something protruding from her mouth, stretching her lips wide. Dr. Chilton backed to the door, seized by a childlike fear that if he turned his back on it, the creature that had been Bedelia Du Maurier but was no longer, would spring from her chair and attack him, dragging him down with her to whatever punishment awaited them.

 

“I didn’t see any sign she was bound or restrained,” Dr. Lecter said after he and Crawford removed Bedelia to her room and then rejoined the others.

“Who would sit still and let a beef tongue be forced down their throat?” Crawford asked.

Gideon picked up her coffee cup and sniffed it. “She may have been poisoned, or at least drugged.”

“There are tests we could do in the lab to find out what is in this coffee but they are not portable tests,” Crawford said. “I don't have them here.”

“Here give it to me,” Dr. Lecter said. “I'll taste it and see if I feel any reaction.”

“That's admirable but too risky,” Crawford said.

“She said if we found her dead that means Mr. Neeme killed her,” Gideon said. “Do we all agree now that Mr. Neeme exists?”

“We looked over every inch of the house and the island we did not find a hiding place,” Chilton said.

“Oh,” said Gideon excitedly. “There's one place we haven't looked. Down on the south side of the island at the water's edge there's a cave that goes way back. I don't even know how far back it goes.”

“You didn't go looking in it in?” Crawford asked.

“I wasn't going to go exploring it by myself. I’m not mad.”

Dr. Chilton snickered.

“Why wasn't Dr. Chilton with you?

“He turned his ankle on the way down and was sitting up the slope a bit. I went on to explore on my own.”

“Were you within sight distance of each other?” Crawford asked.

“Not the whole time. I went out of sight when I went down into the cave.”

“So you can't vouch for each other's whereabouts when Bedelia was being murdered?"

“Well, not as such…” Gideon said. “I don't think I could have gotten back to the house without Dr. Chilton seeing me.”

“Did Dr. Chilton have time to walk to the house and back?”

“I had a turned ankle,” Chilton said. “You yourself had to help me back up.”

“Simply stated, you could be faking it.”

“This is preposterous.”

“He wouldn’t have had the time,” Gideon interrupted.

“How long were you in the cave, out of each other's sight. Exactly how long?”

“I don’t know exactly. About 10 maybe 15 minutes on the outside.”

“But you weren’t timing it, were you? Could have been 7 minutes or 20.”

“You didn’t stay with your partner either,” Gideon said. “I found Graham and Dr. Lecter searching Dr. Chilton’s room.”

“Why my room?”

“We searched every room,” Dr. Lecter said coldly.

“Where was Verger?” Crawford asked.

“Taking a hot bath,” Verger said, fluttering his hand by his forehead. “This situation has me highly distressed.”

Dr. Chilton turned to Graham. "Why were you with Dr. Lecter in my room and not with Crawford?"

Crawford spoke, saving Graham from answering.

“No one stayed with their partners,” Crawford said. “No one could follow simple instructions.” 

He pinched the bridge of his nose. 

“So we have two murders and two possible murders,” Graham said. “I think the fact that we have two definite murders makes the other two more suspicious than they would be on their own. So what's the point? What are they playing at? 

“What's the common thread?” Dr Lecter said. “Is it poison? Miss Lounds was poisoned with cyanide in her drink. Francis was presumably given an overdose of sleeping medication, and Bedelia may have been drugged in her coffee to make her more compliant.”

“But what about Matthew Brown?” Gideon asked. “He was killed by choking with no evidence that he was drugged in any way.”

“Maybe the killer just used whatever was at hand,” Dr. Chilton said.

“No,” Verger said. “We found him in the woodshed. There was an ax right there.”

Graham nodded. “There had to have been some forethought given to Brown’s murder. The chain was taken from down by the pier. It was the signal light chain. Earlier Dr. Chilton and I found the signal light smashed and the chain missing. We found one link that had obviously been cut.”

Dr. Lecter put his hands on the table and leaned closer to where Graham sat,. “Why strangle him and use poison on the others?  And why use chain?" He looked around the room. "Those drapery tie-backs would be better suited to strangling than a chain and that would fit in one's pocket.”

“This has to be tied into our alleged crimes,” Graham said. “The ones that we heard on that record.”

“He's punishing us,” Dr. Lecter said. “He thinks we've done wrong and he's going to make sure we pay.”

“He made Miss Lounds’ death look like a suicide because she drove someone to suicide,” Graham said. “We don't know what Francis did with his grandmother but perhaps he did it to her in her sleep and Matthew Brown--he admitted that he strangled an inmate with a chain.”

“How did the Bedelia kill Neil Franks?” Gideon asked.

“We may never know,” Dr. Lecter said. “But from her death, we can assume it was strangling or choking of some kind.”

“You seem to be assuming that everyone is guilty,” Dr. Chilton said.

“Does it matter?” Graham asked. “It's what Mr. Neeme thinks that matters. We are guilty in Mr. Neeme’s eyes and the fact that we are here proves it.” He looked up at Dr. Chilton. “You better remember those two people who you killed and fast because that’s how Neeme is going to kill you.”

No one spoke, but their thoughts raced...

_ Surgical murderer. Wouldn’t that be a fittingly horrible end?  _

_ Crawford’s gun might cause me trouble... _

_ Sliced, she was. Into tiny bits... _

_ The knife went so easily into her throat she didn’t have time to scream. Her mother and father had time to feel fear. Wonder which way would go. Stupid! I already have my answer. I’m being frightened half to death as it is… _

_ Not sure I buy into this. It is wonderfully dramatic… _

_ Their deaths were horrible. The blood around his mouth. He barely looked human in the end… _

Only Graham spoke his death sentence aloud. “I suppose my fitting end would be to be shot to death.” He turned to make eye contact with Crawford. “by a policeman.”

“I’m not going to shoot anyone.”

“Then why have a gun?” Gideon asked.

“For protection.”

“It doesn’t make any of us feel safe,” Chilton said. “You should get rid of it.”

“No,” Crawford said.

“Then we should lock it up.”

“I’m not letting anyone take my gun.”

“That settles it,” Chilton said. “You must be Mr. Neeme. Who has taken the leadership from the very beginning? Who is the only person who brought a weapon?”

“I told you. I was hired to be security.”

“The only one secure is yourself,” Chilton said.

“Why don’t you go check that cave by yourself?” Gideon asked. “Since you are so secure.”

“I’ll do it,” Crawford said. “Not because I believe in my gun, but because I don’t think there is anyone else on this island!” 

Crawford left the room and a moment later they heard the front door open and shut.

 

With the meeting adjourned, Chilton said he was going to his room to put his foot up. Left unsaid was that he would be locking his door. In the spirit of partnership, Verger offered to accompany him upstairs.

 

Graham offered Gideon a cigarette. When he leaned into the flame of Graham’s lighter, Graham spoke.

“Look here, Gideon, I don’t mind telling you that I’m not comfortable that Crawford has a gun. I think we need to get it away from him.”

“We?” Gideon said. “Why are you telling me this?”

“You’re the only one I’m fairly sure isn’t the killer.”

“That’s odd. Since I murdered my family, I’m the only acknowledged killer here.”

Graham looked down at his cigarette for a moment. “You aren’t the type of killer to do this. This is highly organized and planned. This took a great deal of self-control. You acted out of rage built up from long-held resentments against people you knew. Your’s was a hot-blooded crime and this game on the island is about as cold blooded as it comes.”

Gideon looked at Graham through narrowed eyes. “How do you know all that?”

“It's my job,” Graham said. “I try to think how criminal’s think. In order to catch them.”

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes.”

“Do you know who the killer is?” Gideon asked. “Is it Verger? He seems a bit mad.”

“He doesn’t have the temperament for it--seems a little too hands on for him--but I can’t count him out yet. Verger is eccentric enough to do something like buy an island and try to set a group of people against one another. He’s enjoying himself here, but I don't think he did this. He doesn’t have the moral outrage to want to kill us. His idea of fun would be to throw a handful of straight teetotalers among us and watch them crack. A perversion of innocence would be more his line.”

“And none of us here is innocent.” Gideon said. “What about Chilton?”

“He certainly wants to be smarter than everyone else in the room, but he isn’t,” Graham said. “He might enjoy imagining a scenario where he outsmarts a houseful of people. It would be a fantasy for him, but I don’t think he’d ever actually try. Frankly, I doubt he could pull it off.”

"So who do you think the killer is?”

“Something  about Dr. Lecter gets my attention,” Graham said, leaning over to flick ash into his coffee cup. “He’s a cool customer--cool enough to do something like this, and smart enough too. But what’s his motive? He seems too self-contained to let these injustices bother him.”

“Those self-righteous types can be dangerously stubborn.”

“True, but they are usually also preachy. They wear their righteousness like a medal pinned to their chest. I don’t get any of that from Dr. Lecter. Who I do sense that from is Crawford. Crawford has the motive. Frustrated at the limits of the law, he wants to see criminals of every stripe punished.”

“And he has a gun,” Gideon said, grimly. “How do I know you aren’t the killer?”

“You don’t,” Graham said. “Not for certain.” He smiled. “Let’s try this an exercise. Try to do my job. What do you know about me?”

“You used to be a police officer.”

“So I might have a drive for vengeance.”

Gideon thought for a long moment. “I don’t know how to think like you--like you do for your job, rather. Like a criminal. To me, you just don’t seem the sort to force a cow tongue down a woman’s neck. You’re smart and you say you know how to think like a criminal, but you don’t seem the type to me. I know that isn’t scientific but there you are.”

“I shot a man to death.”

“Yes, but you feel things, don’t you? Like me. I could see you doing something hot-headed. But slipping poison in a woman’s drink?”

“How do you feel about Crawford?” Graham asked.

Gideon looked toward the door Crawford had left through.

“I don’t like that he has a gun.”

 

Crawford didn’t find anyone in the cave, nor, as he was secretly hoping, a boat that could take at least one person to shore. If he had found a rowboat he would have left the barren rock the same hour, with only the clothes on his back.

 


	5. Chapter 5

That night, Graham undressed and laid down on bed, but remained wide awake. He let his body relax while he listened, waiting for his part of the plan. There was a restlessness that flowed between the rooms. Graham could feel the unquiet minds around him, trying to still themselves for sleep, and among them, one mind at peace.

_ What kind of man is the killer? _ Graham thought. Even before Bedelia was killed, Graham knew this was the work of a man. Even before Bedelia died he knew none of this was an accident. There was a plan behind it, a design that he couldn’t ignore. 

Graham didn’t want to think like the killer. He was interesting, perhaps endlessly so. Graham pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.  _ It's not safe.  _ But he couldn’t stop the impressions from coming to him. He couldn’t ( _wouldn’t?_ ) close himself down to them. They flowed through the channels of his mind like a surging tide. 

_ These aren’t angry crimes. These are methodical, almost machine-like, in their precision and mercilessness. They are clever and cold, detached from the victim’s passions. He feels better than his victims. He enjoys our fear and our secret suspicions. No pang of mercy or guilt will stop him. The killer would go on and on and on until none of us are left.  _ It was too hot in his room and he couldn’t breathe. He unfastened the top button of his pajama shirt. 

_ Could I stop him? I almost think I could. If it's down to him and me... _

His thoughts were interrupted by a sound of footsteps, moving down the hall and to the stairs. If he hadn’t already been awake and listening, he would not have heard the quiet footfalls on the carpeted runner. Apparently, Gideon had taken Graham’s advice and walked down the stairs as close to the edge as possible. They were less likely to squeak that way. Graham waited to hear if there were any more noises. He watched the clock. Exactly ten minutes of silence later he rose, put on his dressing gown and disheveled his hair with his fingers.

Graham took a breath and rushed out of his room, taking no care to muffle his footsteps. He knocked on Crawford’s door, a quick staccato.

“Crawford,” he said. “Open up, man. I’ve seen him!”

Crawford opened his door. Graham looked sweaty and wild-eyed.

“I heard noises and I looked out of my room,” Graham said breathlessly. “I saw a figure slip out the front door into the night! It’s him! It’s Mr. Neeme!”

Crawford went back into his room and yanked open his nightstand drawer. He stuffed his gun into the pocket of his dressing gown and pushed past Graham into the hallway. Graham made as if to follow him.

“Stay here!” Crawford barked.

“I’ll check to see who is in their rooms!” Graham said. “We’ve got him now!” 

When Crawford ran off, Graham made a quick search of his drawers looking for additional weapons but found nothing. Then, to keep his story consistent, Graham knocked at the doors of Dr. Lecter, Dr. Chilton and Verger, who were all safely where they should be. 

Crawford came back out of breath and with beads of rain on his shoulders and in his hair.

“Did you see anyone?” Graham asked.

“No,” Crawford said. “I circled the whole perimeter of the house. I even went down to the cove and there was enough moonlight to see there was no one there as well.”

“You encountered no trouble?” Graham asked.

“You almost seem disappointed.”

“I thought we might have caught our killer.”

“Well, he gave us the slip again, clever devil.”

 

After the night’s excitement, Crawford had a hard time getting back to sleep. He wasn’t sure he quite believed Mr. Graham’s story about hearing footsteps and seeing a shadowy and elusive figure disappear into the night.  _ He has the face of an angel, but you know how his mind works. He thinks like criminals. Don’t be fooled by those big blue eyes. Deceit could be behind them, as easy as the rest of them. _

 

The night had not been a restful one for Graham either. He woke several times during the night and around dawn he gave up on sleep altogether and simply waited in bed until he heard voices in the hallway outside his room. They didn’t knock right away, so Graham rose, dressed, and splashed some water on his face. He looked in the mirror.  _ I look like hell. Let’s hope the fellows see that as worry and not as a sinister cast to my features. I don’t think it would take much to have the majority of the group decide to gang up on one. I just don’t want to be the one to be ganged up on. _

Graham opened the door. Crawford, Dr. Lecter and Dr. Chilton were standing outside his room.

“Is there trouble?” Graham asked.

“Safety in numbers,” Dr. Lecter said, giving Graham a warm and reassuring smile.

“I don’t mind saying I don’t want to be the first one to venture downstairs,” Dr. Chilton said.

“We should wake the others,” Graham said. “I wouldn’t want to be the last left upstairs,either.”

 

Verger woke, irritated at the knocking at his door. He was having a such a lovely dream. He had gotten so many funny ideas from this vacation. He couldn’t wait to get back to his estate. 

“What is it, blast you!” 

It was Graham who spoke to him through the door. “We are going down to breakfast as a group, for safety reasons.”

“You’ve just woken me up! I’ll join you when I’m good and ready. Are the dead the only ones who get some peace in this house?”

He lay his head down and let those ideas run through his head.  _ Good, funny times _ .

 

No one answered the door at Gideon’s room. Graham turned the knob. The door wasn’t locked. Graham pushed it open, but stepped back. Crawford went forward to investigate.

“He isn’t here.” Crawford said. “Bed hasn’t been slept in but it looks like he might have been laying on top of the blankets.”

“Oh no,” Graham said to Crawford. “I...I need to make a confession, Crawford. This is damned awkward, but I feel I need to make a clean breast of it. Gideon and I had a plan last night. To disarm you.”

Crawford crossed his arms but otherwise didn’t react.

“There wasn’t any shadowy figure last night,” Graham admitted. “Gideon and I made that up. I was supposed to raise the alarm about a figure I saw running out the door and get you to go chase after it. If you left your gun behind I was going to go into your room and take it. It you brought it with you, Gideon was...waiting downstairs with a fireplace poker to knock it out of your hand.”

“That was an ill conceived plan,” Dr. Lecter said. 

“I could have shot him in the dark,” Crawford said.

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Graham said. “You are the biggest and arguably the strongest. You wouldn’t give up your gun when we asked and we couldn’t take it by force. All we had left was our wits.”

Dr. Lecter stepped forward and put his hand on Graham’s shoulder. He felt a little shiver. “He’s not bigger than all of us together. I agree with Mr. Graham. The firearm makes the rest of us feel unsafe and induces unnecessary fear in the group. You could resist each of us separately in a fair fight, but can you resist all of us together?” Dr. Lecter could see the struggle on Crawford’s face and gave him an out. “I propose this: we lock the gun in your nightstand. You give the key to whomever you like. Then you keep your bedroom locked at all times with the key on your person. That way no one person can get to the gun without someone else's approval.”

Crawford saw the eager gleam in their eyes. Except for Dr. Lecter, whose expressionless face was impossible for Crawford to read.  _ They have me over a barrel _ , Crawford thought.  _ They just might try to gang up on me. I don’t know if I trust them to just take my gun and leave me unharmed. Mob mentality. And we’re all under stress, heaven knows. _

He relented and led the men to his room.

 

Under the group’s watchful eye, Crawford put his gun in his nightstand, locked it and handed the key to Graham. Then everyone filed out so he could lock his bedroom. 

The lights flickered and went out. 

“What are you all doing in the hallway?” Verger finally joined them, still adjusting the knot on his purple tie. “No one has stoked the generator. I’m guessing that means there’s no firewood for the stove and no breakfast either.”

“Do it yourself, Verger,” Dr. Chilton snapped. “You know where the woodshed is.”

“Maybe I will,” Verger said. “Might be fun to roll up my sleeves, get a little dirty.” He went back to his room for a candle.

“We still don’t know where Gideon is,” Graham said.

As a group, they went through every room upstairs, flicking back the sheets on the dead to make sure they were who they were supposed to be, but they did not find Gideon. 

They had finished with the attic and were just starting with the downstairs rooms when the lights came back on.

“Well, Verger actually did something,” Dr. Chilton said.

“Mark the day,” said Graham.

Several minutes after the lights came up, Verger caught up with the group, still wearing his slicker.

“Are you all looking for Gideon, by any chance?”

 

Gideon was in the kitchen. The wood Verger had been carrying was scattered on the floor where he had dropped it. Thankfully most of it was out of the large pool of blood that covered most of the kitchen floor.

Gideon had been shoved head-first into the oven. The scent of charred flesh and singed hair hung heavy in the air. Dr. Chilton put his handkerchief over his nose. Dr. Lecter stepped forward and eased Gideon’s top half out of the oven. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, which accounted for all the blood on the floor. His face was scorched and unrecognizable. There was some shriveled thing in his mouth. 

“Would you hand me that wooden spoon?” Lecter said.

Graham, who was closest, passed it over to him. Dr. Lecter used the handle to pop the object from Gideon’s lips. They were relieved but confused when they saw what it was.

“Is that an apple?” Dr. Chilton said.

“Like a suckling pig,” Graham said. “He killed his family over their Thanksgiving meal. He cut their throats. Now he’s victim and the main course.”

“They don’t serve suckling pig at Thanksgiving,” Dr. Chilton said.

“It conveys the intent well enough,” Graham said. “Gideon’s crime took a holiday which is about family and food and perverted both.”

“You seem to know exactly what the killer is thinking,” Crawford said.

“That’s my job.”

“It’s quite a coincidence that you and Gideon made this plan that had him hiding downstairs alone, only for the killer to happen to catch up with him.”

“It is a coincidence,” Graham said. “Just that. I couldn’t be the killer. I stayed upstairs. I didn’t go downstairs at all.”

“That’s your story,” Crawford said.

“I knocked on everyone’s doors,” Graham said. The other men nodded. He had. “I didn’t have the time. Unlike you. We only have your word. You might have found Gideon in the dark and decided it was a good time to get rid of him.”

“Why wouldn’t I shoot him?”

“Because then it would have been too obvious!” 

“You could have killed him before you knocked on my door.”

“But I didn’t!”

“I would like my key back please,” Crawford said coldly. 

“I’m not giving it to you. You’ll have both keys.”

“Then hand it to Dr. Lecter.”

Graham looked at the suspicious faces around him. “Why are you all looking at me that way? Do you all think I killed Gideon? What about him?” He pointed a finger at Dr. Lecter. “How many of them were drugged? We’ve taken Crawford’s gun. Why don’t we take the doctor’s bag?”

“I have no objection to that,” Dr. Lecter said, holding his hand out. Graham reluctantly took the key out of his pocket and placed it in Lecter’s waiting palm. He closed his fingers around it, without breaking eye contact with Graham.

“Before we do anything else, I propose we remove Mr. Gideon,” Dr. Lecter said after pocketing the key. Then we can have something to eat once the kitchen’s been cleaned. None of us have eaten breakfast and that tends to make people quarrelsome.”

“How can you even think of eating?” Dr. Chilton said. “The smell in this kitchen! Blood and burning hair and everything else.”

“I want to keep my energy up,” Dr. Lecter said. “Who knows what we’ll face before the day is through.”

Dr. Lecter and Crawford took their places by Gideon’s head and feet in their duty as the unofficial body removal service.

“I can carry his shoulders,” Dr. Lecter said to Crawford, “if the smell bothers you.”

 

“Nice bit of work, Graham,” Dr. Chilton said, once they were alone in the kitchen. “Pointing a finger at the doctor once the heat is on you.”

“He can bear it,” Graham said. “Do you see? Cold-blooded bastard. He didn’t even turn a hair. It isn’t natural.”

“Maybe he’s just secure in his innocence?”

“Or confident in his ability.”

“I’m still not sure of you, Graham,” Chilton said.

Graham laughed and Chilton flinched. “If you think I am the killer, you’ve made a very stupid mistake, Dr. Chilton. You just told me you suspect me, without any witnesses around to hear you. If I were the killer, I would kill you next.”


	6. Chapter 6

After Graham and Dr. Chilton cleaned the kitchen, Dr. Lecter volunteered to make them all omelettes. “Under your supervision, of course.”

They took him up on the offer, Dr. Chilton going so far as to examine the eggs for cracks before they were used.

“Read that in a book once,” Dr. Chilton said. “Poison introduced into a cracked egg.”

Mason Verger declined to watch the omelettes being made. He asked to be summoned when breakfast was ready because he was going into the drawing room to read and smoke.

“Aren’t you worried about your food?” Dr. Chilton asked him.

“You’ll all be watching him like a hawk,” Verger said. “And if you’re all conspiring together to kill me what chance do I have anyway?”

 

Breakfast was silent. Everyone was looking at everyone else around the table. Some of the looks were openly hostile. Graham saw that the table now held only five pig statuettes. Crawford followed his gaze.

"What?" he asked. 

"Nothing," Graham said. He considered telling Crawford about the disappearing pigs, but it seemed unsporting somehow. He had picked up on it on his own, why shouldn't Crawford? 

Dr. Lecter's knife scraped briefly on his plate. The sound sent a chill up Graham's spine.

"Were there always five pigs?" Dr. Chilton asked. 

"No," Graham said. "They've been disappearing, one by one. Someone has been keeping them current. One pig per surviving guest."

"Good Lord," Dr. Chilton said.

 "We're all pigs. Fitting isn't it? We're all just milling around the pen until Neeme gets hungry again." Verger set down his silverware with a clatter.  “He's pretty damned creative. I'd almost admire him if he wasn't out for my blood. Knocks down a pig for each of us. It's just icing on the cake that he kills us with style. Poetic justice, some would call it."

"What are you blathering about, Verger?" Dr. Chilton said.

"Gideon was cooked like a Christmas goose and Matthew Brown was choked with a chain. The punishment fits the crime, dear doctor. I know how I’ll meet my end. What about you?”

Chilton startled “Me?”

“Do you remember those names now? Russell Tear and...some other name. Some wop?”

_ What was the point of lying now? _

“Randall Tier,” Dr. Chilton said. “And Peter Bernardone.”

Graham leaned forward, his eyes glittering. “So you _do_ remember them?”

“They were inmates at my asylum,” Dr. Chilton said. “I was trying something new. There were certain patients who were under delusions, but otherwise very intelligent. I felt they could be talked out of those delusions. If they could only let go of them, they would be no different that you or I. Randall Tier was one of those. He was a quiet and intelligent young man who thought he was an animal. Not metaphorically, like a beast. He meant it very literally. That was his delusion--that he was an animal in a man’s body. Most of the time he was a model prisoner, but he had a tendency to bite. Clearly he was stuck in the oral stage of development. That was why he felt so alone. His psychosexual progression was vastly underdeveloped. That he expressed that by biting was not new, but he built a whole personality around justifying his oral fixation. Fascinating. I felt that if he could see the logic that was plain as the nose on his face, then he would be able to integrate into human society again.”

“That isn’t what happened?” Dr. Lecter asked.

Dr. Chilton lit a cigarette before he went on. “I thought I got through to him. The last time we spoke he seemed so calm. He said ‘What if I could prove to you that I am an animal?” I told him if he could, I would have to accept that, not thinking at all that he could. It was madness, obviously.”

Dr. Chilton blanched. He was getting to the worst part of the story. “Randall had been on such good behavior, that I had awarded him liberties in the asylum. We had an activities room where inmates could interact. I thought it would help Randall to be social. That night he went into the common area and induced Peter Bernardone to go back to his room--which is strictly against the rules. It was several hours before the alarm was raised and when they found him...Randall had ripped out Peter’s throat with his teeth. Peter was already dead before we found him. Randall had made a nest from his bedding on the floor and Peter was in it. Randall had been chewing on his own flesh, taking chunks out of his arms and wrists. He was still alive when they found him, but he had lost too much blood. Before he lost consciousness, he told the doctors to make sure I knew what happened.”

“He proved to you that he was the animal he claimed to be,” Dr. Lecter said.

“Yes,” Dr. Chilton said. “In a way I suppose you are right. I felt bad about it afterwards, but that just strengthened my resolve to get it right the next time.”

“You mean you are going to try again?” Crawford asked.

“Of course,” Dr. Chilton said. “I’m not going to let one setback deter me.”

"Have you considered re-evaluating not only your methods, but your suppositions as well?" Dr. Lecter asked.

"Psychiatry is not like surgery," Dr. Chilton said. "I can't just cut someone open and hack their illness out of them. It requires a deft touch to heal the psyche."

“Well that was a fine story,” Verger said, tipping back his chair. "A fitting death for you would be to be torn apart by wild animals."

"This is morbid," Dr. Chilton said.

“Why don’t you go next, Verger?” Crawford said.

Verger let the front legs of the chair come down heavily on the floor.

“What would you gents like to know?”

“Did you kill your sister’s baby?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“No,” Verger said.

“Mr. Neeme seems to think you did,” Graham said.

“Well Mr. Neeme, whoever he is, is off his nut.” Verger waved his hands at the house in general. “Obviously.”

“How did that baby die, Verger?” Dr. Chilton asked, a hard gleam in his eye.  _ You should be grilled as hard as I was. I’ll see to that.  _ “Why don't you tell us about how innocent you are?”

“There isn't much to tell,” Verger said. “Newborns die all the time. They're very fragile things. The baby was a mistake to begin with; a miscalculation. It shouldn't even have gotten that far.”

“Talk sense for once,” Crawford said.

Verger ran his hands through his hair, making it stand up on end.

“My sister. You don't know my sister. She's maddening. I've had to take care of her for most of our lives. You see, she doesn't have any money of her own. Papa left me all the money. She's completely dependent on me for every morsel of food that goes in her mouth. But do you think she's grateful? Of course she isn't grateful! Those types and never are!”

“What types do you mean?” Graham asked. “Women?”

“They tend to be women, yes. At least in my experience.” He chuckled. “But at least I can make Margo toe the line. She has to do what I say. You know them that pay the piper pick the tunes and I had Margo dancing. There was only one way she could get out from under me. Papa left some money in a trust for any male heirs Margot or I had. He was trying to encourage us to propagate the line. It was not an insignificant amount of money. All Margot needed to do was give birth to a legitimate male heir.” He chuckled. “No such restriction for me, of course. My illegitimate child could inherit. Papa believed virility in males was a virtue. For his livestock, and his children.”

“Why didn't your sister just get married and have a baby?” Dr. Chilton said. “That would seem easy enough.”

Verger spread out his hands. “Over the years Margot had a few suitors, but I felt honor-bound to tell them of my strange sister’s quirks. They turned tail and ran. Besides, men tended to leave her cold. I told you she's an unnatural woman all around.”

“She let one get close enough to her to get her in a family way,” Chilton said. "Did she marry in secret?"

“I had Margot on a short leash. It was made of gold and diamonds but it did not reach very far.”

"If she didn't marry, how did she expect to inherit?" Chilton asked. The rest of the table had grown quiet again but he chattered on. "Her illegitimate child couldn't inherit, only yours could. So what would be the benefit of conceiving outside of wedlock?"

Verger shook his head. “You don’t catch on very fast, do you?”

Graham did catch on quick. He had a sickening flash of Verger's interior life. It was not a place he wanted to spend much time. “Verger. Were you that baby’s uncle?”

“Of course I was the baby's uncle.”

“Where you  _only_ the baby's uncle?

For once, he said nothing.

“What?” Dr. Chilton. “I don’t understand.”

“Margot found a way to have an illegitimate child who could inherit," Verger explained. "A child who was a Verger through and through. My child.”

Chilton recoiled with an audible sound of disgust.”You are revolting.”

“You don't understand how it is with well-to-do families,” Verger said. “It's like the royalty: you keep the money close and your family members closer.”

“I don't think they mean that close,” Crawford said.

“Margot was smarter than I gave her credit for,” Verger said. “She was always very stubborn, making things harder than it had to be. A sister shouldn’t strike her brother, but she would claw and spit like a cat. When she starting behaving I thought I had finally broken her, like a pony that finally takes the bit. I should have known she was cooking up a plan. Pretty ingenious, actually. I give her a lot of credit. She tried, but it's her fault what happened to that baby.

“I insisted that Margot had the baby at home. It was a rough delivery for dear Margot. She can’t have children anymore because of the damage to her lady parts. I know it's indelicate to talk about but there are no more ladies present. She had to have some surgery done. Thankfully the friend I had attending the birth was also a medical doctor and he could help her. There wasn't much he could do to save her fertility.”

Verger was looking into the middle distance, lost in some private reverie while the cigarette in his hand burned down, unnoticed. 

“She was in pain, but we made sure she was comfortable. I was so taken with poor Margot, sitting by her bedside day and night holding her hand. She looked as beautiful as I had ever seen her. She was pale and listless. She had lost so much blood. She was so frail I thought she might float away. I didn’t have it in my heart to be cross with her. I resolved to forgive her, right there. She didn’t even need to ask me. My heart…” Tears started to stand out in his eyes. “My heart was so full of love for her, I forgave her. We needed to start over, letting our past sins be wiped away. But we couldn’t do that while the baby still lived. So, I took that thing--he was not right, even I could see that--and drowned him in a rain barrel. My friend signed the death certificate and that was all.”

Verger plugged a fresh cigarette in his mouth. No one offered to light it for him, so he took it out and held the unlit cigarette in his fingers.

“If Margot and just left well enough alone I would have made sure she wanted for nothing, but she had to be greedy. Once she had this baby she wouldn't need old brother around anymore and she had some grudges against me, you might say. It was self-defense in my mind. His life or mine. I don't consider it a killing. It never really lived.”

Still no one spoke. Verger stood, pushing his chair back.

“Margot only has herself to blame!”

Graham stood, shaking. “You’ll meet your maker for this, Verger, and I for one, will be glad!”

Dr. Lecter stood and put his hand on Graham’s arm.

“Mr. Graham,” he said. A firm but unmistakable warning.

Verger left the dining room. For once, no one tried to get him to stay in the safety of the group.

Graham sat and took up his fork as though nothing had happened.

“Someone should check the signal lamp to make sure it's still on,” he said finally.

His casual tone gave the other’s permission to relax. 

“Are you volunteering?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“I don’t mind going,” Graham said.

“I’ll go,” Dr. Lecter said. “I wouldn’t mind taking a look around the island.”

“Do you think there’s someone hiding on the island?” Crawford asked.

Dr. Lecter tilted his head like an inquisitive bird. It was a mannerism Graham had come to be familiar with. It meant that the doctor was finding something quietly amusing. “No,” Dr. Lecter said. “I don’t.”

“We can go together,” Graham said. “I wouldn’t mind getting out of this stuffy old place.” Dr. Chilton, recalling Graham’s suspicion of the doctor, gave him a questioning look. Graham gave him the barest of nods.  _ I know what I’m doing. _

 

“The light looks fine,” Graham said. “At least that’s something.” He looked at Dr. Lecter. He was more than a little curious about what he was thinking. Most people he could read quickly and accurately. Dr. Lecter was more complicated. Sometimes he caught a quick flash of something dark and primal moving in deep waters, but it was gone just as fast.

“No one has answered our signal,” Dr. Lecter said.

“The sea is still choppy,” Graham said. “I hope it calms down soon. I can’t wait to get off this island.”

“I have to say I agree,” Dr. Lecter said, looking out over the water to the mainland. “I would like to escape with my life.”

“How likely do you think that is?” Graham asked.

“I have survived some tight spots.”

“You, me. Crawford, too.”

Graham looked out over the sea as well. The men stood shoulder to shoulder and the wind whipped them. “Nothing will ever be the same,” Graham said. “Even if we leave, part of me will stay here.”

“What part?” Dr. Lecter asked.

“Something human in me is dying here,” Graham said. “I have seen people with their masks off and at first I was terrified. But the part of me that was frightened has died. All I feel is numb.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I don’t know what I’m saying. I must be losing my mind.”

“On the contrary, you sound very sane to me,” Dr. Lecter said. “But you shouldn’t say such things out loud. We don’t have the luxury of doubting ourselves if we want to survive.”

A scattering of raindrops was flung against their faces by the wind. They turned and went back up to the house.

 

Mason Verger was wreathed in steam. He felt he deserved a good soak after having chopped wood and gotten the generator engine going. _ And the scene down there in the dining room! How dare they judge me? _ He tried to put that out of his mind. There was no point dwelling. He made the bathwater as hot as possible and added the last of his bath salts.

There was a bit of grease under his fingernail that he hadn’t been able to scrub out. 

_I should do more of this, working with my hands. I could spend some nice quiet time with the young men Clark brings around, teaching them how to fix engines or build… things…I could guide them._ _I could be a fatherly figure to those fatherless boys. Funny since I didn’t want my own son. It was a shame all around. Betrayed by Margot, my only family left. Papa would have set her straight long ago._

He sunk lower in the water, submerging most of his head. He didn’t hear the door slowly open behind him.

_ Too bad that boy had something wrong with him. He would have been pure Verger blood. Seen the same things in pigs before, when their bloodlines were too close. Too bad that I can’t try again with Margot. It would have been putting my head in the noose, but what a fine strain we could have made together. Maybe I was too hasty when I told Cordell to fix her. _

Verger's meditations were interrupted when strong hands clamped down on his shoulders and pushed him under the water. Although he tried, he had no leverage to heave himself out of the tub. He reflexively tried to grab at the arms that held him down, but his slippery hands found no purchase. He flailed his arms impotently until his chest felt about to burst and he had to take that first lungful of water.

 

Crawford and Dr. Chilton were in the dining room. The air was hazy and blue with cigarette smoke. Graham came in and counted the piggies on the table. Still five.

“Where is Dr. Lecter?” Crawford asked.

Graham shook rain from his hair. He looked younger with it tousled and loose.

“Upstairs, I assume,” Graham said. “Dr. Lecter had gotten wetter than I had and felt the need to change his clothes. He should be back in a moment.” He took a seat at the table. “We could pass the time by having you tell Dr. Chilton and I how Beverly Katz was killed.”

“I said before: there isn’t anything to tell.”

“She was killed in the line of duty?” Graham asked.

“Yes.”

“Shot?”

“No.”

“Death by misadventure?”

“The criminal we were chasing got the drop on her. His weapon of choice was an axe.”

“Stay out of the woodshed,” Graham said.

Dr. Chilton drummed his fingers on the tabletop.The tense banter between Graham and Crawford was getting to him.

“It's been too long,” he said. “Dr. Lecter should be back by now.”

Graham checked the mantle clock. Dr. Chilton was right. It shouldn’t take this long to change clothes.

 

They came upon the door to the bathroom first. Crawford knocked. “Hullo? Verger? Are you in there.” He twisted the knob. “Well it isn’t locked.”

“He might be back in his room,” Dr. Chilton said.

But he wasn’t back in his room. Once they opened the door, they could see his arm over the side of the tub, motionless and dripping. Crawford went forward. Mason Verger’s head was totally submerged and there were no bubbles coming from his nose. His eyes were wide open. 

“We don't need to take baths do we?” Crawford asked. In order to drain the water, he would have had to reach down between the dead man’s legs and pull the plug out of the drain, something he was not eager to do.

Graham and Dr. Chilton shook their heads. Each room had a half-bathroom. They could do with sink baths if it meant they didn’t have to get Verger’s body out of the tub. Mentally, they were already crossing the bathroom off from the list of rooms open for their use.

“We need to find Dr. Lecter,” Dr. Chilton said. “He’s killed Verger! He’ll kill us next.”

“Don’t lose your head, Chilton,” Crawford said.

Crawford patted his pockets. “Blast! Lecter has the key to my nightstand. I would have liked to face him armed.”

They went to Lecter’s room. Graham's heart was in his throat. Crawford hoped if he was inside, he could rush in and have the element of surprise. He motioned the two other men to stay quiet.

Crawford flung open the door, but it was he who was surprised. Dr. Chilton uttered a strangled cry. Crawford’s hand was tight on the doorknob. For the moment, he was frozen in his tracks. Graham, the only one who seemed capable of movement, pushed past him to enter the room.

The room was lit only by two candles and the flickering light gave the brief illusion of movement to the figure on the bed. A form lay stretched out there, flat on its back, draped entirely with sheets, except for the abdomen, which was not only bare, but had been slit open, from sternum to pubis. The internal organs were protruding, spilling out and leaving red patches on the sheets. Graham stepped closer. The man’s stillness unnerved him.

“What’s this?” he said and held up a metal object. “I found your key, Crawford.”

Graham reached forward a hand and turned back the sheet that was covering the face of the figure. He got the impression of red smeared over familiar features. He flinched away.

“Is it Lecter?” Dr. Chilton asked.

“Yes,” Graham said. “And he’s been shot in the face.”

Crawford came forward, saw the mess of Lecter’s face and flipped the sheet back over it. Graham handed him the key. Without a word, Crawford left and went to his own room. He unlocked his door and with the other key, unlocked the drawer in his nightstand. It was empty. His gun was missing.


	7. Chapter 7

“Verger must have killed Dr. Lecter and committed suicide,” Dr. Chilton said. They were all in Crawford’s room, gaping at the open--and empty--drawer.

“How did he get my gun?” Crawford asked.

“I don’t know," Dr. Chilton said. "Maybe you left your room unlocked.”

“I didn’t, but even if I did, Verger would not have been able to open the nightstand drawer.”

"If he had a gun, why wouldn't he just shoot himself?" Graham asked. "Drowning is a nasty way to go."

"He probably drugged himself beforehand," Dr. Chilton said. "We already know he was a doper."

"Where is the gun?" Crawford asked.

They went to Verger's room and searched it top to bottom. They found some pills, and a bottle of whiskey he was keeping as a private reserve, but they did not find a gun.

"Maybe Dr. Lecter killed Verger," Dr. Chilton said after they had closed Verger's bedroom door behind them.

"Why are you so intent on this being a murder-suicide?" Graham asked.

"That would mean the killer is dead," Dr. Chilton said, "and we are all safe."

"We can run through the 'Lecter as killer' scenario," Crawford said. When he didn't continue the thought, Graham took that to mean that the floor was his

"Dr. Lecter could have gotten the gun if Crawford left his door open," Graham said

"Which I didn't," Crawford said.  “He might have killed Verger and then himself, but he didn’t gut himself like a deer.”

Graham laughed. “Gutted like a deer on Stag’s Head Island.”

"He could have gutted himself first," Chilton said, his voice rising. "People in the grips of mania have been known to do all sorts of things, including self-injuries that they don't seem to feel."

 Graham cleared his throat. “Its a moot point anyway, since there isn't any gun by the body.”

“How well did you look?” Chilton sniped.

“Found the key, didn’t I? A key’s a sight smaller than an entire handgun.”

Crawford shook his head. "It isn't possible. This wasn't a murder-suicide."

“There must be a hidden room here somewhere,” Dr. Chilton said. “Built into the walls.”

They spent the rest of the day measuring the inside and outside dimensions of the  house, only to conclude there was no possible way there was a hidden room in the house big enough to conceal a person.

 

Dinner that night was eaten straight out of cans from the pantry, standing up in the kitchen. Graham saw there were only three piggies left on the table and he could do without them staring at him as he ate.

They uncorked a new bottle of whiskey and clinked glasses. There was a solemn air about them. They were toasting their own deaths, and each others.

 

The next morning, Graham rose early and wrote in his diary, waiting to hear movement from outside. He had had awful dreams the night before. He thought he heard scratching at the door all night. How much of that was a dream? Garrett Jacob Hobbs visited him, blood still oozing from his bullet wounds. He was whispering things Graham couldn’t quite hear.

_ He wants me to come closer. It's a trick. If I come any closer, that will be the end of me. Mustn’t look too close… _

There was a tap at his door. Graham startled awake from the doze he had slipped into. The page of his diary slipped into incoherence, garbled words running in a crooked line down the page. He ripped it out and stuffed it in his pocket, wishing there was a handy fireplace to toss it into.

“Who is it?” he asked.

“Its Crawford.”

“Is Chilton with you?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t come out.”

“He’s not answering his door,” Crawford said.

“What concern is that of mine?” 

“You won’t help me look for him?”

“You seem brave enough to go around alone. You find Chilton.”

Graham heard footsteps moving away and down the stairs. He opened his window. The wind had died down and there were no longer any whitecaps on the ocean. The boat would be able to land today.  _ Probably too late for Chilton... _

The footsteps came back with a heavier tread. Graham put his hand on the letter opener on his desk.

_A house is chock-full of weapons if you know where to look_ , Graham thought.

“I found Chilton.”

Graham slipped the letter opener up his sleeve and went to open the door.

 

It had taken Crawford some time to find Chilton. He was in the study, a room they had often checked in their island searches, but not often used. It had been a trophy room with mounted animal heads on the walls and taxidermied pheasants. After people started dying all the glass eyes staring down at them were disquieting and they agreed without discussing it that the study would be another place they wouldn’t go. Over the doors there had been a large stag’s head as a focal point of the room. It was there no longer. It had been taken down from the wall, set flat on the floor and Dr. Chilton was mounted on it. The points of the buck’s antlers went straight through him and coming out the front, each point circled in red.

“Killed by an animal,” Graham said. 

Crawford turned to look at Graham. At that moment he looked like an animal himself. Something cunning and strong. The lights went out as the generator ground to a halt.

“I guess we know where we stand now,” Crawford said.

“Wait just a moment…” 

For a large man he was quick on his feet. He pounced at Graham. A shot rang out...

 

* * *  
  


 

“It doesn't’ make a lick of sense,” Det. Zeller said. “Ten bodies and no killer.”

Det. Price held his head as if he had a headache. “Read me the letter from Graham again.”

Zeller picked up the letter which had recently washed ashore in a whiskey bottle, leading to the discovery of the bodies on Stag’s Head Island.

 

_ To the finder of this letter, please alert the authorities,  _ (Zeller read)

 

_ I hope by the time this letter is found it will be redundant, and all will already be known as I will have successfully accomplished my swim from Stag’s Head Island to the safety of the mainland. If I have not appeared and this letter is the first indication of the trouble on the island then it would seem I have failed and my body lies somewhere in the cold water between Stag’s Head Island and the mainland. _

_ I have assembled all the diaries of the people who have died here, as well as my own, and laid them out on the dining room table. Take them for what they are: the personal accounts of people involved, with possible biases and incomplete understanding of events.However, I believe taken together they represent a fairly accurate picture of the order of events. _

_ Most importantly, the diaries will tell you the order of the deaths, except for Dr. Chilton and Crawford. I won’t be redundant here. After the ‘double event’ of Verger and Dr. Lecter’s deaths, the next to die was Dr. Chilton. He perished some time during that last night. Crawford found the body and brought me to see him. It was there, in the trophy room, that Crawford attacked me. I don’t know if he was the killer all along or if he thought I was and was acting in self-defense. He was bigger than me, but my size makes me hard to hold. I am also deceptively strong and know how the police fight, having been a police officer myself. I managed to get Crawford’s gun away from him.  _

_ I will say for the record I am no murderer. I have killed, but only to save my own life. I did not take lives in cold blood, although circumstances indict me. I am the last man standing, as they say. Still, I am not convinced I am alone on this island! Someone is here and I am their last victim. It is only a matter of time before I am killed--made up to look like a suicide, no doubt. I will not sit still and wait to be killed and framed for the murders of nine fellow human beings!  _

_ Therefore, I decided to strike out and swim for the mainland. It is a desperate hope, but if I die, I die attempting to live. _

_ It is getting late and I do not want to wait another day to start out. I may not survive it. _

 

_ \--Wm. Graham _

 

Zeller laid the letter back down. “I’ve read through all these diaries. It looks like Crawford, Graham, Chilton and Gideon all kept diaries. Crawford’s diary was more like short reports. Very dry and factual. They all agree the killings were in this order:” Zeller consulted his notebook. “Lounds, Dolarhyde, Brown, DuMaurier, (Gideon’s leaves off there, since he was the next one to be killed) Gideon, then Verger and Lecter. Graham’s letter provides some details on the death of Chilton, Crawford and then himself.”

Zeller picked up a report. “The coroner couldn’t give us times of death. Too much time had passed. But what he could tell coincides with the witness accounts of cause of death. Lounds died of cyanide poisoning. Dolarhyde and DuMaurier were drugged with sleeping dope. He got an overdose, while DuMaurier had that and chloroform in her system, as well as being choked with a foreign object. Brown was strangled. Gideon had his throat cut, his head burned and was stabbed so much he was nearly gutted. Verger was drowned. Lecter was shot and eviscerated. Chilton had his neck broken, probably by a sharp twist by a powerful attacker, then he was mounted on the stag’s head. Crawford was shot and Graham drowned in the bay.”

“But it wasn’t really Lecter who died on the island.”

“I was getting to that,” Zeller said. “Unbeknownst to everyone on the Island but Mason Verger, the ‘Dr. Lecter’ on the island was actually a man named Cordell. He and Verger were old mates. He must have had a bit of a laugh pulling one over on everyone.”

“More’s the shame that Verger or ‘Lecter’ didn’t leave a diary,” Price said. “That must mean one of them is the mysterious Mr. Neeme.”

“How? They were both murdered. The diaries and letter support the fact that Chilton, Crawford and Graham all outlived them.”

“Are we sure the real Dr. Lecter wasn’t behind this somehow?”

“He’s been cleared,” Zeller said. “Three months ago he disappeared. Bit of a scandal. He told his colleagues he was going to visit family but he actually eloped with his secretary to Europe. I’ve contacted Lecter’s aunt in Paris. She said she’d seen them both recently, but they may have gone to Lithuania to see Lecter’s hometown. Not a good corner of the world at present, and not my idea of a honeymoon spot, but I’ve never left the state so what do I know?”

“The real Lecter is accounted for--although I would liked to have spoken to him directly,” Price said meditatively. “I don’t mind saying I thought it was Graham for the longest time. Damned convenient for him to swim away and never be seen again.”

“He didn’t seem the type, if you don’t mind me saying so,” Zeller said. He was treading carefully. He still remembered how convinced Det. Price was that they needed to mount a manhunt for Graham. “I talked to his wife and they had recently bought a house together for them and their little boy. No signs of any unhappiness.”

“The wife doesn’t always know,” Price said. “He was my number one suspect, but then his body had to show up. Right where it would be if he tried and failed to swim to the mainland.”

“Graham seemed to think it was Crawford,” Zeller said cautiously.

“When he didn’t think it was Lecter,” Price said. “I think Crawford is out of it too. He couldn’t buy an island on a policeman’s salary. Not even a crooked policeman can make the kind of money it takes.”

“So who had that kind of money?”

“Only Verger--who himself was murdered--and Lecter, the real Dr. Lecter.”

“Who was safely in Europe while this happened.”

“Did we get anywhere on the alleged crimes on that recording?” Price asked.

“Let’s see,” Zeller said. “Abel Gideon did kill his family, but that’s no secret. What you might call the malpractice killings--those who had people die as part of their occupation--that is Lecter, Graham, Crawford, Brown, and Chilton--were all investigated by various ethics boards and dismissed. Verger did have his nephew die on his estate. Death certificate was signed by Cordell, so there might be some funny business there. The Lounds business is pretty straightforward. Unfortunate, but there you have it. Might happen to any reporter. The allegations against DuMaurier and Dolarhyde are groundless. All the people who knew them said they were devoted to their charges. I don’t think the solution will be found on that record.”

Price breathed out again and looked over the table strewn with evidence--letters, diaries, police and coroner’s reports.

“So who killed them?”


	8. Chapter 8

_ Recovered in the unclaimed effects of a deceased person on January 4, 1977. The envelope it came in was labeled:  _

 

_ To the person who finds this letter please send it along to the local police at Stag's Head Island, North Carolina, The United States of America _

 

_The letter reads as follows:_

 

To whom it may concern, 

 

I sit writing this letter by an open window. A warm breeze is ruffling the gauzy white curtains. It is peaceful. My companion is by my elbow, telling me that writing this letter is unnecessary, and, perhaps, dangerous. He is satisfied with a job well done and he doesn’t feel the need to ‘wallow in the past.’ I am of a different stripe, however. I have always sought to know the why of it all. I often wished I could transcend my body and see everything from a God’s eye view. Pure hubris, and, impossible--except in this one instance: the mystery of Stag's Head Island. Here I do have a view of the big picture, as if I am in heaven--where everyone already believes me to be.

Since I am writing this letter to be sent upon my death, it is my hope that the murders on Stag’s Head Island happened many many years ago-- meaning I have had a long and happy life.  I hope I do not flatter myself that the whole truth is unknown until this letter comes to light. At the point this letter is being read, I don’t know how much time will have elapsed, but I assume there will still be people around who remember this, as it is an incident I do not think will be easily forgotten.

The events of Stag’s Head Island started long ago in the fertile mind of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. From the time he was a child, Dr. Lecter wanted to remove the unworthy from the earth. Coupled with an almost unquenchable bloodlust, he knew if he were left unrestrained he would be a mighty destructive force in the world. He had the power, but not the control. Instead of flying off to release death and destruction, he became a surgeon, which partially sated his bloodthirsty urges and gave him the power of life and death. (The charge against him regarding Jeremiah Olmstead was a true one. He intentionally let him die on the operating table. Olmstead was a bad piece of work.) 

While he was a surgeon, Dr. Lecter started to collect injustices. It started innocently enough, with a story he heard through medical circles about the head of an asylum who talked a patient into a state of mania, wherein the formerly peaceful patient killed a fellow inmate and then himself. He was intrigued that this man escaped punishment simply because he talked a man into murder in an office instead of in a back alley.

After that, he started to actively seek out these anecdotes for his own amusement. The stories of people who killed outside of the law--those who escaped punishment. He would skillfully pump people he met for information. It is how we became acquainted. We fell into conversation. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was baiting me. I told him about a police officer who had sent more than one of his subordinates into dangerous situations without any regard for their well-being. Two of them were severely damaged and one was killed in a particularly horrific manner. I didn’t use any names, of course, but he learned enough details to ferret out Jack Crawford from there.

From that conversation, a feeling of camaraderie arose. We started a correspondence and found that we had much in common. We arranged to begin meeting in person. Dr. Lecter had--and still has--insight into human behavior and the human condition such that I had only gotten from years of work. It seems to come to him naturally, intuitively. I found him very interesting and he, me. Eventually, I favored his company over all else’s including my wife’s. He and I spoke often of the killing of Garrett Jacob Hobbs. He helped me realize that I didn’t feel sorry I had done it, no matter what I told other people. I could tell the truth to Hannibal. It felt good to remove Hobbs from the world.

Around then, Dr. Lecter confided in me his project. I was intrigued. Eventually we came to realize that we had something we needed to do with our talents. I was never accepted into the official ranks of the alienists. There's something about me they said, without ever giving me a description of what that was and what I could do about it. Dr. Lecter helped me see that that might not be a bad thing. Perhaps I was meant for other things. For better things.

With my assistance, Dr. Lecter’s hobby became our full blown project. We decided together to investigate some cases that we had heard of people who for one reason or another were outside the grasp of law. Killing these people would be morally right. I confess, this aspect of it appealed more to me than to Hannibal. He did not care what these people had done and in some cases had a sort of professional respect for them. It was for my sake that he agreed to only target the guilty. We both collected stories and then tracked down the details. Dr. Lecter is a fastidious man and wanted a round number, so ten it was. The two of us working together was very efficacious. We collected ten people in no time. 

Even after we had our names, we didn’t act right away. We spent long pleasant evenings discussing the order of their deaths. It wasn’t as straightforward as leaving the “worst” crimes for last. For example, we both decided Miss Lounds should be first, but for different reasons. I thought her sin was very minor and she should not experience the terror the others would. Dr. Lecter thought it would be ironic justice to deny her a first-hand account of one of the biggest crime stories of the century. For a similar reason we decided to leave Jack Crawford until last. I thought it was the height of cowardice to repeatedly send subordinates into danger without even bothering to defend their reputations. Dr. Lecter thought it would be amusing to watch him try--and fail--to solve the crimes.

Our discussions were so detailed that for a time, I thought we might not ever get to the actual plan, but once the details were worked out in the minutest detail, we set the plan into motion. 

Through a third party, Dr. Lecter purchased the island and made a big public scene about running away to Europe. Once the interest in him died down, he slipped back into the country on a false passport and we started the active part of the plan.

I won’t bore you with too many details. If you’ve read their accounts, you have most of the information already. 

That first night, while Francis was making a scene over the recording, Dr. Lecter slipped cyanide into Miss Lounds’ drink. It was easy then as everyone was distracted and no one was on guard over their food and drink yet. 

Dolarhyde was next. He came to Dr. Lecter’s attention for attempting to strangle to death a woman named Victoria Leeds. Mrs. Leeds did not die and eventually the charges were dropped. No one connected this attack to the death of Francis’ grandmother years earlier. Dr. Lecter thought the attack on Mrs. Leeds was part of a pattern. It was a matter of time before he was successful in murdering women. Since he was being punished for future crimes, I successfully convinced Dr. Lecter Francis should be killed second. Killing Francis was almost as easy as killing Ms. Lounds. Dr. Lecter gave him very benign sleeping tablets. When he was sure Francis wouldn't wake up, he went back and gave him an injection of more of the same. He then put the pillow over his face, since that is how Francis killed his grandmother.

The next killing was Matthew Brown. That one was rather straightforward. Brown strangled an inmate with the chain, and he himself was strangled to death with a chain. Brown told everyone killing the inmate was an accident. Not everyone believed this, including some fellow orderlies who were happy to talk openly about this to Dr. Lecter. In their telling, Brown was prone to violence against the inmates and had special antipathy for Miggs. Brown specifically targeted him for poor treatment and when he saw the chance to get his hands on him he did not let up, even as people were screaming for him to do so.

(Speaking of the chain, you may be wondering as you read our accounts why no one responded to our signal light, either before or after the murders were finished.  _ Who told everyone the light meant anything?  _ That information was sent to Bedelia and Francis via letter from Mr. Neeme. It was, simply, a lie.There was no signal established with Mr. Narracott.)

Next, Dr. Lecter used the opportunity of being asked to search the house to kill Bedelia DuMaurier. It was great luck he was assigned Verger as his partner as it was virtually guaranteed Verger wouldn’t stick to any work. She did kill her cousin. I thought it might have been to put him out of his misery. Dr. Lecter doubted it, but in deference to me, he agreed to kill her closer to the beginning of the sequence of deaths.  

Gideon was next. Dr. Lecter and I both agreed that he remembered more than he said. He spent ten years in an asylum, but the crime deserved the death penalty. I tricked Abel Gideon into an alliance. I told him to wait in the kitchen while I sent Crawford out the front door. Hannibal was already waiting in the kitchen for him.

The next bit was tricky. Hannibal killed Mason Verger in the bath and then I helped him stage his own death. We stole the gun from Crawford’s room. In all the talk of locked doors, everyone overlooked the fact that  _ the person who bought the house would have duplicate keys to all the rooms. _ Crawford had obligingly given the key to the nightstand to Dr. Lecter, after deciding I was untrustworthy, so all Hannibal had to do was go retrieve the gun. He hid it under him when he pretended to be dead. I made up his face to look like he had been shot. The organs we borrowed from Mr. Gideon. If anyone had been observant, they would have noticed that there was not much blood in Dr. Lecter’s room, despite him being disemboweled. This was because Mr. Gideon had been almost entirely drained of blood when he was killed. 

I made sure I was the only one who looked Hannibal over. Crawford did look at his face, but in the flickering candlelight, the gore I smeared on Hannibal looked very convincing. I also planted the nightstand key in the room, further confusing the issue.

The remainder was easy. Dr. Lecter was “dead” and free to move about as he pleased. That night, he rose from the dead. He used his key to get to Chilton as he slept and march him downstairs at gunpoint, then he snapped his neck and mounted him on the stag antlers for the poetic touch. Dr. Lecter was hiding in the drawing room and shot Crawford the next morning when he lunged for me.

After that, it was a matter of staging the scene and leaving the island.

We had previously arranged with Cordell to pick us up from the island at a pre-set time. During our time spying out these stories, we had made some unsavory contacts as a means to an end. Cordell was one of these contacts.We slunk about some very dodgy areas looking for information. It was dangerous and almost thrilling!  

Cordell was a bosom friend of Verger’s and helped him with many disgusting enterprises. We were lucky he arrived just shortly after Crawford was killed. We greeted him with a gun in his face. Once we had his corpse, we arranged him in Hannibal’s room, returning Gideon’s organs where they belonged. 

It was my idea to kill Verger and Cordell together. Verger and Cordell were partners in crime, with Cordell often pulling off the riskier parts of their capers. With their deaths, Margot Verger and Cordell’s abandoned wife Thora would each inherit a substantial sum. (I'll spare you the details, but after talking up Verger's lawyer and, frankly, plying him with alcohol and narcaotics that only a doctor can acquire, we leaned Verger's will wasn't as binding as he thought.)

Incidentally, I had to burn Verger’s diaries since they would have nothing in them about his old friend Cordell masquerading as a wealthy surgeon. I don’t know as you will have missed much in not having them. They were a disgusting catalog of all the vile thoughts that flowed through his diseased brain. Reading through it, I could only feel vindicated in our decision to remove him from the earth.

After we arranged the house the way we wanted it, we used Cordell’s boat under cover of darkness to leave the island. 

If you have kept careful count, you will have only come up with nine victims so far. Dr. Lecter is a meticulous man. He would not leave his work unfinished. 

If you have found my body, I might as well tell you, he was another imposter. His name was Clark Ingram and Hannibal killed him before the official gathering on Stag’s Head Island began. Ingram and I were similar in height, weight and coloring. Hannibal hoped by the time he was found, his body would be too far gone to make an identification and the circumstances would heavily imply the body was mine. 

Ingram was another font of information for our project. As a social worker, he saw many abuses of power that fell short of reportable. In a bar one night he was in his cups, and told me about the grieving woman who had helped her cousin along to death and the man who smothered his aged grandmother. Unfortunately for him, he did not tell this with a tone of outrage. I was later to find  that Ingram himself used his position as a caretaker and counselor at an orphanage to take advantage of his charges. He was the one who pointed us towards Cordell and Verger. We were sickened to find Ingram sometimes loaned orphans out to Cordell and Verger for them to do with as they saw fit.

The death of Ingram and Cordell made an even ten.

What did _I_ do you may ask? You can see the account I give has Dr. Lecter as the killer each time. I assisted him. I was the distraction, the leader of men’s minds. I trotted them around by their noses making circles around the truth. With my hands smashing signal lights and stealing figurines I made it seem as though the killer was everywhere at once.

Have you found ‘my’ body?  I almost hope my body wasn’t found. On one hand, it would be safer to have all of us accounted for, but I like the romance of disappearing into seeming thin air.

If I haven’t been found at the bottom of the bay, I am sure that people have had their suspicions of me. Would a man desert his entire life--his work, his friends, his family? He would. For love.

The boat ride across the bay was peaceful. The water was like glass. Hannibal and I didn’t speak. We didn’t need to. From the boat there was a car and from there a train to South America where people ask less questions. 

The first night we were alone in the sleeper car was a relief that I cannot begin to describe. For a long time before the Island, we avoided being seen together. We must arrive at the Island as strangers to avoid the slightest suspicion that we were working together. Dr. Lecter, especially had to avoid being seen by anyone, since he was supposed to be in Europe. Towards the date of the event, we didn’t see each other at all, writing to each other under assumed names in letters which we read and burnt right away. It was torture to pretend we didn’t know each other on the island. Even when we were alone, we never broke character. We didn’t want an overheard word, a heated glance, a stolen kiss to give us away. Once we were finally free and alone, all that melted away and we were the only two people in the world. That first night in the sleeping berth, with us both free and in each other's arms, I was so overcome I had to bite my own fist to avoid calling out his name. I have the scar still.

If you want a confession, that is part of my confession.

The doctor and I are very happy together and we plan to live a full life here. However that doesn't mean there aren't injustices here that may need to be addressed. So perhaps you will hear of us without even knowing it is us. Either way, you now have your answers about what really happened on Stag’s Head Island.

 

Yours, Wm Graham, 

(co-signed) Dr. HR Lecter


End file.
